Everybody Talks
by KillTheWhelp
Summary: [Sequel to The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore] Hunter McCarthy and David Rossi have finally begun their relationship. But will Morgan's jealousy and David's unwillingness to go to Erin Strauss put a strain on everything?
1. Transition

** Between the trip** to David's cabin and where my story picks up, we dealt with quite a few crazy cases:

Morgan had scaled a freight train to try and apprehend a household cleaning product-huffing killer who would burglarize his victims' homes and spend the night, pretending he lived their lives before moving on.

Reid had protected a young child from a delusional woman who was kidnapping little boys, holding them for seven days, then smothering them because her own child had been taken away from her in that same timeframe.

David, Morgan, and I stayed in Vegas to help Reid solve the cold case of a boy from his childhood. He had been molested, then stabbed and stuffed behind a dryer. Reid's father had helped to cover up the murder of the boy's killer—which Reid's mother witnessed—by the victim's father. Meanwhile, JJ had her beautiful baby boy, Henry.

I aided David in making "Professor Rothchild" uncomfortable during his interview. He had been kidnapping women and killing them. He believed that because of his extra y-chromosome, he was a natural-born killer—just like his brother, whom Rossi put in jail and got executed.

Emily and JJ's substitute (Jordan) worked together to thwart a shady pickup artist who had unwittingly trained a man to pick women up so he could disembowel them and then make them clean their own mess up.

Morgan took it personally when someone started killing cops in Phoenix, Arizona, as he used to be a cop himself. After this case, David invited me to spend the night for the first time. No, we didn't have sex… Yeesh…

David, Jordan, and I discovered the bodies of a man's wife and children. He had shot them, then suffered from a psychotic break, going on a spree and shooting people on the road.

Morgan and David heavily questioned a man who had fallen in love with another man. They had bonded over raping young girls.

I had talked to a young kidnapping victim whose parents had been killed by a Romani family. It was some sort of weird ritual…

We had saved a young blonde woman who had been taken because she resembled a man's nanny. The nanny had died when he was a little boy and it really screwed him up.

David met a young woman on a book tour of Cleveland and she ended up getting killed by a fellow criminology student who had been killing people the same way as other famous serial killers.

Hotch bonded with a pricey call girl who had some serious daddy-issues. She had been killing her clients, who were cheating on their wives with her, because her father had left her mother for his other woman.

Emily had lobbied for a case against a priest who was killing people via exorcism. He believed the possibly ill men were responsible for the death of another priest in Galecia, Spain. One of those men was a great friend of Emily's from her days in Italy.

But David still hadn't talked to Human Resources about our relationship.

For several weeks, we had gone on pretending that nothing was happening between us. We had kept everything a secret for a very long time. I wanted to be open about our relationship. I didn't want to worry about people finding out.

But I also didn't want to pressure David. He knew what he was doing. And…things were going so well between us…

I rolled over in bed and tried to stop thinking about it. The silk sheets rustled over me. I snaked my arm over David's torso and rested my head on his chest. The slow rhythm of his heart and the upward and downward motion of his even breathing lulled me to sleep.

* * *

This kind of sucks, but I just figured it was kind of necessary. First legit chapter is coming soon


	2. Omnivore

**_"We all have_**_ our issues with Boston."_

Hotch's words from so long ago rang through my head. I had known what he meant when he was trying to comfort me that day. He had worked on the case of the Boston Reaper when he first got to the BAU. The case was never solved and the lead detective had pushed Hotch away once the Reaper had stopped killing.

The only reason I knew that was because Haley, his ex-wife, told me once. Our team had taken a trip to a bar for some quality time. Haley got a little drunk and as soon as her husband (at the time) left us alone at our table, she let spill the details. I never told anyone about it.

I knew that something had developed in the case when Hotch zoomed by our desks with JJ in tow. She stopped trying to chase him and scoffed, slapping her hands to her thighs.

"Well, looks like we're going toBoston."

* * *

"The Reaper is driven by a need to dominate, control, and manipulate," Hotch said on the jet. He was reading from a file, but I knew he had the Reaper down packed. Haley told me that after he was sent away from Boston, Hotch had developed his own profile for the killer.

"So then why would he offer a deal that would stop him from doing that?" Emily asked.

The lead detective, Shaunessy, had been offered a deal by the Reaper. If Shaunessy stopped hunting him, he would stop hunting people for as long as the detective was still alive. Of course, Shaunessy had just died the morning we boarded the plane.

"Well, killing gave him power. But after so many, the pay-off began to diminish. So he decided to switch tactics," Hotch explained. "Offering the deal gave him the ultimate power—better, even, than killing. He manipulated the police into voluntarily surrendering."

"Even got it in writing," Reid added.

"He won. Why start killing again?" JJ asked.

"Well, because the only person who knew he'd won—the person who made the deal—had just died," I explained.

"Narcissistic killers _need_ other people to recognize their power," David said from his seat next to me on the bench. "It's why they contact the media."

"So how did he stop for ten years?" Emily asked.

"In _Night of the Reaper_, the author suggests he had been arrested for an unrelated crime or died," Reid said, holding onto the very book he was paraphrasing. "Perhaps he's trying to correct that misconception…?"

"What has he been doing all this time?" JJ wondered.

"Planning what he would do if he started killing again," Hotch answered.

"So, from '95 to '98, he shoots, stabs, and bludgeons twenty-one victims," Morgan said as he looked through the pictures he had fanned out in his hands. "Men, women. All ages, all types. No specific victimology or MO. How did you build a profile from that?"

"We didn't," Hotch said. "Shaunessy sent us home before we had a chance."

I chewed on my lip and looked down at my Converse. There was a moment of silence as the other agents stared in disbelief.

"BTK, the Zodiac, and the Reaper all have similarities," Hotch continued. "They're all highly intelligent, disciplined, sadistic killers who named themselves in the press."

"Uh, 'highly intelligent' may be a bit of an understatement," Reid pointed out. "The Reaper and the Zodiac Killer have never been arrested. The BTK Killer was only caught after twenty-five years because he went to the press to counter a book that said he died, moved away, or had been locked up—just like this one."

"Speaking of the media: when this gets out, it's gonna be a frenzy," JJ said. "If they get wind of this," she held up the bagged copy of the Reaper's letter to Shaunessy, "they're gonna be all over the Boston police."

"The longer we can float the copycat story, the better chance we'll have at catching him," Hotch told her. "Rossi, Prentiss, Hunter, and Morgan, go to the field office. Set up shop—go through everything there. JJ and Reid, we'll go to the crime scene."

* * *

"McCarthy, wait a minute."

I turned around and let Emily and Morgan go past me. We had just parked outside of the field office and David was locking up the car.

"Are you…gonna be alright?" he asked tentatively, stepping closer to me. "Being back in Boston and all."

I took a deep breath. "Yeah. It's been about fifteen years since Cassie died," I told him and gave him a smile. "Thank you for asking, though."

"That's what I'm here for," David reached out and squeezed my shoulder. It would come across as a caring gesture to anyone watching. But it was just a little more to me.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and take in his scent. But I knew that I couldn't.

So instead, I just turned around and followed my fellow agents into the building. We introduced ourselves to the detectives and awaited Hotch, JJ, and Reid's arrival, doing what our leader had ordered. When they came in, they told us that one of the victims, Evan Harvey, had a pair of glasses put on his face and his girlfriend, the other victim named Nina Hale's, watch had been taken. The Reaper's signature was to take one of the victim's belongings and to place it on one of the next. But those particular glasses were from the ninth victim and they weren't put on the tenth victim.

"George Foyet, twenty-eight," Hotch said as the man's picture showed up on our flat screen in the field office, "was the ninth victim and the only one who survived the Reaper."

I recognized that name. All of the murders had been committed after I moved to Maine, but I remembered hearing news stories.

"Not for lack of trying," Rossi said.

On the screen there were now more pictures. First, a picture of Foyet on a gurney, the others, close-ups on his wounds. His torso was covered in stitched up stab wounds that looked like he was covered in leeches or millipedes.

"Amanda Bertrand, nineteen, his date for the evening, was not as lucky," Hotch continued. He clicked his remote and a picture of a pretty brunette showed up. "He likes to attack them inside or near their cars," he said as we then got to see a photo of her corpse covered in blood and stab wounds, "at night, on poorly-lit, less-populated roads."

"Foyet said he approached them, pretending to be a lost taw-rist," said Sergeant O'Mara (in his _awful_ Boston accent. I figured that he was probably not a native to New England and was trying to perfect the accent…and obviously wasn't doing so well. Honestly, as a Bostonian, I was insulted. And I don't really even _have_ an accent. It just shows up in certain words…). "In the hospital, we put Foyet with a sketch ah-tist."

"The Reaper always uses some sort of ruse to get close to and spend time with his victims," Hotch said, showing the sketch on the screen.

"Uh, the _eye_, as he depicts it, appears to be the Eye of Providence," Reid said, holding up the copy of the Reaper's deal with Shaunessy. I finally got a good look at it. There were a few lines, double-spaced, then underneath it, a crude, red drawing of an eye inside a pyramid with lines sticking out of it, "a symbol adopted by the US government and incorporated into the Great Seal in 1782 with the words '_Anuit coeptis_' inscribed beneath it. That's Latin for 'Providence or fate has favored our undertakings'. Uh, the Reaper seems to see himself as the personification of fate."

On the screen, there was a picture of an eye on a car, drawn in blood, and next to it was another picture of the word "FATE" written on a wall in blood.

"So, how did Foyet survive?" Emily asked.

I looked down at my feet, reminiscing about the details of the case. I, obviously, never worked on it before.

Someone pressed a button and the cool voice of a 911 operator spoke.

"_911, what's your emergency?_"

"_I just murdered two more,_" said the deep voice of the Boston Reaper.

"_Excuse me sir? Did you say you _murdered_ someone?_"

There was a pause.

"_Victims eight and nine. By a silver Toyota on Riverton, past the Tyson Quarry._"

"That call was made from a pay phone about a mile from the crime scene," I said.

"EMT's arrived fifteen minutes later. Bertrand was DOA, Foyet—barely breathing," Reid said.

"So, the Reaper made one of these calls after each of his killings, telling the police where to find the bodies?" Emily gave Hotch an incredulous look.

"Until this one, the ninth. If he hadn't made this call, Foyet wouldn't have been found in time," he explained. "The call saved him."

"So, the Reaper didn't make any 911 calls after this one?"

Hotch and I shook our heads just as JJ's cell phone jingled.

"Yeah?" she whispered.

"Looks like he learned his lesson," Emily commented.

"There's a reason he left Foyet's glasses at the last crime scene," Hotch held up the baggie that was holding the spectacles. "Foyet could be in danger."

"We'll find him," Emily said, getting out of her seat with Morgan.

"Uh, Hotch. There's a reporter outside and he's insisting on speaking with you. Roy Colson. He says he knows you," JJ said as everyone else stood up.

Hotch nodded and walked outside.

* * *

Two more victims were killed that night.

"Another couple," David said as Hotch inspected the car. "Much older this time."

"One shot and one stabbed," I added, looking in the back window at the older woman's almost curled up body. She had been the one who got shot, though. Right in the forehead. And her husband was the one who got stabbed.

"No reason to stop out here," David continued.

"His license and registration are out of his wallet," Hotch reported. "Looks like he used a cop ruse."

"Good spot. Isolated. Few drivers," David said.

"He put Nina Hale's watch around her wrist," I said, shining my flashlight through the window.

"Okay," David leaned down and looked through the front window. "So, what'd he take?"

The three of us looked for something to be missing. Finally, Hotch discovered it.

"His wedding ring."

"Ah-tha and Diane Lanessa, Weymouth," O'Mara told us as he came over to the car. "Married thirty-two ye-ahs. They were coming home from the Elks, where they played Bingo twice a week. I gotta go make notification."

"You want company?" David asked.

O'Mara looked at him. "I got it," he said before walking off. I had been getting the vibe that he wasn't a huge fan of our presence there.

"Looks like he went through her purse," Hotch continued examining the car.

"Any idea what he was looking for?" I asked.

Instead of answering, I watched as Hotch pulled down the sun visor on the passenger side. A note fell out. From my view through the back seat window, I could see a picture of a bunch of people with the word "FATE?" written over it in blood. Hotch walked around the front of the car and showed David the picture. I came up behind him and looked at it again.

"The question mark is new," he said.

"It's for us," Hotch told him. "He's saying it's not fate. He's saying we had ten years to save them, and that these latest ones are on us."

"You got all that from one question mark. That's impressive."

"I may know him better than I've let on," Hotch admitted.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that there _is_ a profile on the Reaper."

"I thought we were called off before we had one," David said.

"We were. I had just started the profile, and then he stopped killing, so, officially, we were done. But…this case…" Hotch seemed to be having a difficult time facing either one of us. Of course, he didn't _know_ that I was already aware of that.

"It stuck with you," I said.

"I kept coming back to it over the years," Hotch looked at me. "I worked on it alone."

"But you never shared it with anyone," I continued. _Except Haley, I guess._

"I know I'm always preaching that profiling is a collaborative effort, but this one wasn't. I know now maybe if…if I was wrong, I was gonna head us in the wrong direction."

"But you think you're right?" David added.

Hotch sighed. "The more I see, the more accurate I think it may be."

"Okay," David held up the picture to give it to Hotch. "Then we need to hear it."

* * *

"The Reaper fits a profile we refer to as an omnivore. Unlike most serial killers, an omnivore doesn't target a specific victim type… Although he tends to focus on his younger female victims with his knife, he essentially is a predator who kill anyone," Hotch told the large group of detectives, with David and me at his side.

"Why's he so democratic?" O'Mara asked.

"Because his kills aren't just about his victims. He needs recognition. He needs us to know," Hotch explained.

"The symbols, the placement of prior victims' possessions on subsequent victims…it's all for us," David said.

"Why?" O'Mara asked.

"Power. The Shaunessy letter's the clearest example of this. He manipulated Tom Shaunessy into literally surrendering to him," Hotch told him.

"The burden was too much to bear. In a very real sense, Tom Shaunessy was the Reaper's twenty-second victim," I added, looking at Reid, who was sitting in a chair off to the side.

"Like BTK Killer, Dennis Rader, the Reaper is _extremely_ disciplined," Hotch said. "In his everyday life, this will very likely make him so inflexible he can't keep close relationships or work closely with others."

"I believe our killer has another interest that may give us the best opportunity to catch him," I said. "The Reaper's last victim was an older woman. He killed her quickly with a single shot. The prior younger victim, he spent more time with and stabbed forty-six times."

"Why?" O'Mara asked again.

"He pays special attention to his younger female victims and his weapon of choice with them is a knife. A substitute instrument for bodily penetration," Hotch said.

"And the younger the victim, the more time and effort he spends," I continued. "I think our guy is an ephebophile."

"Ephebophile?" O'Mara furrowed his brow.

"Someone who's attracted to adolescent, post-pubescent children," Reid explained as Emily walked into the room. "Teenagers."

"Look for men with access and authority," Hotch ordered. "High school teachers, counselors, coaches, and anyone who's been charged with sex crimes against teenaged girls in the last ten years." Emily got his attention. "That's all for now, thank you." And he followed her into an office.

* * *

Garcia had been unable to find George Foyet. He had just disappeared. But with the help of Roy Colson, the man who had written _Night of the Reaper_, and the man who called JJ when we first got to Boston, Hotch got one of Foyet's new addresses. He asked David and me to go with him for questioning.

"How did Colson find this guy?" David asked as we sat in the SUV outside of Foyet's house, waiting for him to come home.

"He interviewed Foyet extensively for his book. They kept in touch," Hotch said.

"They're friends?"

"Sort of. Foyet wouldn't give him his phone number. He gave him one of his aliases, though."

Just then, a haggard-looking man shuffled up the street. He was carrying a box and a bag full of groceries and supplies. He looked familiar…

"That's him," Hotch said, opening up the car door.

We all got out and crossed the street, meeting the man on the sidewalk. I pulled my credentials out and got ready to display them.

"George Foyet?" Hotch asked him. The man stopped and stared at us from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. "It's okay, we're FBI. These are Agents Rossi and McCarthy and I'm Agent Hotchner. We've met once before. Do you remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," he said in a weak voice. His hair was graying and his handsome face was wrinkly. He seemed like he had aged too quickly, due to all the stress from the attempted murder.

Foyet turned around and looked down the street, as if the Reaper was going to come out from nowhere and finish the job.

"W-Would you mind if we got off the street, please?" he asked.

Hotch muttered an affirmative answer and we followed a coughing Foyet into his house.

"How'd you guys find me?" he asked after placing his box on the counter.

"Roy Colson," Hotch told him.

Foyet looked up with a furrowed brow. "Oh," he murmured and took out a medicine container and got ready to pop some pills. "Is-Is this gonna take long? 'Cause I really can't be late for work." He looked like he was about to burst into tears.

"What do you do?" I asked.

"I'm a freelance computer specialist for the city," he told me, putting a pill in his mouth.

"We're sorry to bother you. We'll make it as quick as possible," David promised.

"Is this yours?" Hotch asked quietly, showing Foyet the baggie with the glasses.

Foyet looked from the glasses, up to Hotch, then reached for them. He looked like he was going to cry again.

"I knew it wasn't a copycat," he told us, looking down to examine the glasses. Then he started to cough again, hacking louder than before.

David took a cup from the strainer and poured him a glass of water. Foyet grabbed a tissue and started to cough into that. He sat down at his shabby kitchen table and David handed him the glass of water.

"Thank you," Foyet said, gulping it down. "I'm sorry." He wiped his mouth off with his wrist. "I was gonna propose to her that night…at the restaurant, but I got cold feet. The ring was still in my pocket when he approached us. Said he was lost. He had one of those…sight-seeing booklets. I was looking at it when he stabbed me."

"Mr. Foyet, you don't need to go through this again," I said gently.

He sniffed and ignored me. There was something weird about the way he was acting. He sounded like he was crying. But no tears were falling down his cheeks. Like he was forcing it.

"I couldn't move," he continued. "I just sat there. Bleeding. I watched him kill Mandy. He stabbed her sixty-seven times. Do you know how long it takes to stab somebody sixty-seven times?"

"He should've left your glasses on his next victim…but he didn't," Hotch said, making Foyet look up. "He held onto them all this time."

Foyet chuckled bitterly. "What? D'you think he's got some special interest in me?" He grabbed the glasses and looked at them again. "I've been living with that possibility for the past eleven years," he said as he stood up.

"Have you received any strange letters or calls? Hang-ups?" David asked.

"I keep residences under different names," Foyet said. "I move between them randomly. He likes to get you in cars, so I take the bus. Believe me, I've gone to great lengths to make sure none of the things you mentioned never happen." He took another sip of his water.

"We'll need your other names and residences," David said, handing him his famous notepad and pen, "so we can reach you."

"We can take you to some place safe until this is over," Hotch offered.

"No," Foyet said as he wrote down what we asked for. "Boston is my home. It's the one thing I promised I would never let him take from me."

"Then we'll protect you here."

Foyet looked at him, then me, then Rossi.

"You can't protect me," he said weakly. "Nobody can."

David and Hotch exchanged glances as he continued writing.

"Please be careful with this," he requested. "Please."

"It's safe with us," David said as the man tentatively handed him back the notepad and pen.

"He's just a man. Nothing more," Hotch said quietly.

"Then why can't you catch him?" Foyet asked.

"We will."

"Thank you for your time," I said, and we evacuated the premises.

As soon as we got back to the Federal Building, a man with curly dark hair approached Hotch.

"Hey, uh, this was dropped off at my office," he said, brandishing a piece of paper and a manila envelope in an evidence bag.

David grabbed onto it and I looked over his shoulder. It was the exact same note the Reaper sent to Shaunessy, with the Eye of Providence drawn underneath it (in pencil this time).

"I'll get this to the lab," David said, touching my elbow so I would follow after him.

* * *

I was back at the hotel we were all staying at. Hotch had told us to get some rest, even though I was sure he was still going over evidence in his room. I had just gotten out of the shower when my phone vibrated on the nightstand. I finished tying my damp hair into a messy bun and walked around the bed to check as it vibrated again.

_Call from David Rossi._

I couldn't help the smile that was creep onto my face. I really hoped that wasn't a business call…

"McCarthy," I said, just in case someone was around him. I know Morgan and Garcia had that problem, saying risqué things when Strauss was around or something.

"_What are you doing right now?_" David asked.

"Getting ready for bed," I shrugged.

"_Are you too tired to pay your Sugar Daddy a visit?_"

"Heeeey, I am _not_ a gold digger," I blushed.

"_You know I'm just kidding. But seriously, come to my room._"

I looked down at my pajamas—a pair of red Champion shorts and a t-shirt from a cancer walk I had done.

"Okay, but don't expect any glamour from me," I sighed. "What room are you in, again?"

And so I found myself sneaking out of my hotel room (since I didn't have any pockets, I put my hotel key under the door, just enough so that no one would notice it and I'd be able to slide it out when needed) and slinking past Emily's room to David's, which was right across from hers. As quietly as possible, I knocked on his door and he opened it up subsequently.

He still had his shoes, jeans, and dark indigo shirt on, with the top buttons undone, just the way I liked it. I kept smiling and entered his room quickly. As soon as he shut the door behind me, I threw my arms around his neck and took in his scent. I felt his hands on the small of my back and melted into him.

"For someone who seemed so reluctant, you're sure happy to see me," he murmured in my ear.

"I-I'm sorry," I blushed again and unlatched myself from him, taking a step back. "I couldn't help it."

"Don't be," David said, stepping closer. He put one of his hands on my embarrassingly warm face and swooped in to plant a lip-tingling, stomach-fluttering, cheek-blushing kiss on my awaiting mouth. "I just don't want to do something that'll make you think of me as creepy old man."

I chuckled and covered his hand with mine before saying, "I would never think of you like that."

He smiled down at me with a twinkle in his dark eye and herded me over to one of the beds. We sat down next to each other and he put one of his hands on my (freshly shaven, thank God) thigh.

"So…" he started, making me look up from the patch of visible skin on his chest.

"Yes?" I raised my eyebrows and parted my lips a little.

"I just…I can't say I'm not surprised that you…have feelings for an old guy like me," David admitted.

"Well, first of all, you're not _old_. You're younger than my father," I said, adding _…by about ten years_ in my head.

"Really?" he cocked an eyebrow.

"Really," I nodded. "My oldest brother's fifteen years older than me. Anyway, I'm just not attracted to men around my age."

"Do you think it has something to do with what happened when you were a teenager?"

I gulped and shook my head.

"Not completely."

"What do you mean?" he asked, rubbing small circles on my skin with his fingertips.

"Well, I've always considered myself a bit beyond my time," I winked. "I could always keep up with the adults when I was younger."

"Usually this kind of thing stems from an absent father. Was your dad there for you a lot?" David asked.

"Eh, he was pretty busy. But I'm also the youngest of four _and_ the only girl. Needless to say, I got a bit more attention than my other brothers, who were nine years and one year older than me. But let's stop being profilers for awhile."

I cut his impending apology off with a kiss. One of those long, romantic, passionate ones. Well, I guess that's how you'd describe it. I mean, I did end up crawling onto his lap and clinging to him like a koala…

"I should probably go," I said hesitantly.

"We'll continue this once the case is over," David smirked as I untangled myself from him.

"I'm holding you to that," I said, trying to mask my nervousness with confidence. I wondered what that entailed…

"I'll walk you to the door," David stood up, put one hand on the small of my back, and led me out. With one hand on the knob, he gave me one last kiss. "Good night, Hunter."

"Sweet dreams," I winked and he opened the door.

I stealthily made my way down the empty hallway to my room. I crouched down and found the key—thankful that Morgan hadn't taken a stroll and noticed it or something. That could lead to some uncomfortable interrogation….

Anywho, I slid the key into the thingamajigger and was granted access to my room. And as I lay myself down to sleep, I couldn't erase the smile from my face. Hey, might as well enjoy something nice before going back to the gruesome case…

* * *

The loud, obnoxious vibrating of my phone on the mahogany bedside table awoke me from a rather pleasant dream that involved David and me walking through the BAU with our arms around each other, able to freely acknowledge our relationship.

"Hullo?" I said, my voice groggy.

"_Meet Rossi and me downstairs in the lobby. There's been another murder,_" said Hotch urgently.

"Wait," I stopped him from hanging up and jumped out of bed. "I-I'm not dressed."

"_Hurry_." Then there was a click to signify that he had hung up.

I threw off my shorts and pulled on a pair of socks and jeans. Once I was done tying my shoes, I slipped on a windbreaker, put my hair in a ponytail, grabbed my gun and badge, and hurried down to the lobby. Was I the face of a professional FBI agent? _Hell_ no. But I was in a rush.

Once I got to the lobby, I met up with David and Hotch. We went outside and got into one of the SUVs. And as I sat in the backseat, I wondered why Hotch always brought me along with him and David. I mean, I didn't think I was any better than Emily, Reid, or Morgan… But, whatever. I'm not exactly complaining.

When we got to the crime scene, I gasped. The Reaper had taken out a bus. He wrote a bunch of numbers on the windows in his victims' blood, along with the words "NO DEAL".

"We'll go inside," Hotch said, walking into the bus with David. I followed them and grimaced at all the mutilated bodies inside.

"This is certainly a change…" I commented under my breath.

"Six bodies," David said louder. "Not including the driver. He put 'em down with the gun—or more likely _guns_—and finished them off with his knife."

Hotch just stared at the driver, slumped against the window. He looked paler than usual. He seemed to be taking this batch of murders particularly personal.

"Arthur Lanessa's wedding ring," he finally said.

"What'd he take?" I asked, stepping closer as Hotch prepared to get off the bus.

"Does it matter?"

I turned and exchanged glances with David before going after the unit chief. As I walked by the windshield, I noticed another Eye of Providence.

Hotch started to walk down an alleyway and David and I caught up to him as he rubbed his forehead in frustration.

"Hey," David said. "What's goin' on with you?"

Hotch turned around to face us.

"He called me tonight at my hotel and offered me the deal."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I hung up on him," he explained, looking at the bus. "And then he does _this_."

I noticed that he looked unnaturally tearful. Another crack in the façade that Aaron Hotchner put up.

"So you think this is _your_ fault?" David asked incredulously.

Hotch hesitated before making eye contact again. The tears in his eyes were welling up and I knew it was hard for him.

"It is," he said quietly.

"Well, here, use mine," David held out his gun and I wondered what the hell he was doing. "You convinced _me_."

Hotch started to protest and I finally figured out what David was doing. He was offering his gun so Hotch could shoot himself in the head. David was just trying to prove that this wasn't Hotch's fault.

"No-no, you hung up on him. You practically killed them yourself. Go ahead—" Now Hotch had his hand on his forehead once more. "—Get it over with. Don't worry about us. We'll get this guy without you."

"Dave, I had ten years to do something about it!" Hotch exploded, finally letting the tears fall.

"_Shaunessy_ made the deal. The killings stopped. He closed the case and sent the BAU away. For ten years, you worked on other cases—_active_ cases."

"But I kept coming back to this one. I kept coming back to this profile."

"Hey, I was retired! Should I blame myself for every victim who got killed while I was on my book tour?"

Hotch looked down.

"Look, if you wanna end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, _blaming_ yourself for everything, you go ahead," David said. "But that voice in your head, it's not your conscience—it's your ego. This isn't about _us_, Aaron. It's about the bad guys. That's why _we_ profile _them_. It's _their_ fault. We're just guys doin' a job. And when we stop doing it, someone else will. Trust me. I know."

Hotch considered this for a moment and looked at David's gun before saying, "You can put that away."

"You sure?" David asked, doing as he said.

"Yeah, it's a little dramatic, don't you think?" Hotch started walking down the street.

"My wife always said I had a flair for the dramatic," David told him, making me gulp.

"Which one?" Hotch asked.

David thought for a second.

"_All_ of 'em."

"…Thanks."

"Anytime."

* * *

"He never used code before. Why now?" Hotch asked as we examined some of the crime scene pictures with Reid. The numbers on the windows were 1488, 201, and 1439.

"Not part of a pattern or equation," Reid said. "Mathematically they're insignificant."

"Maybe so. But I _know_ I've seen them before," David said. And so I looked at the picture again and noticed that they _were_ a bit familiar.

"Foyet said he likes to attack people in their cars. Tonight he hit a bus," Hotch reminded us.

"Which is why Foyet only takes the bus," I said.

"It was the number seven," Hotch walked over to a map. "And it stops right in front of Foyet's apartment." He pointed to the spot on the map.

"He knows where Foyet lives," David said.

"And he wants us to know it."

"Fourteen thirty-nine," Reid muttered. "The apartment you interviewed him in today was fourteen thirty-nine Yarbrough."

David pulled out his notepad and put it on the table while Hotch walked around the table to look as well. We saw Foyet's list of aliases and addresses.

"The other addresses he gave us. Two-oh-one South Brookline, Fourteen eighty-eight Edenhurst," David said. "The numbers on the bus are Foyet's addresses."

"We'll split up and cover each address," Hotch ordered.

And so I found myself in the front seat of an SUV with David, speeding down the streets of Boston. We stopped at 1439 Yarbrough and pulled out our guns, hurrying up to the front door.

I put my hand on the doorknob and looked at David, who was holding his gun up. I nodded my head and quickly opened up the door, letting him go in first. I followed him into the familiar kitchen.

"There's no one here," I said.

David nodded and examined me. But before he could say anything, we heard someone from his comm. piece.

"_We've got nothing_," said Reid from the other house, where he was with Hotch and Emily.

"Same here," David replied. "Have you heard from Morgan?"

We exchanged worried glances after hearing Reid's negative reply. And as soon as we got ready to leave, we got a call about a death at the same address as Morgan and O'Mara.

David sped down to the house and we met with Hotch and the EMT's outside. There was a body on the gurney, covered in a blanket and strapped down. David went to the head of the gurney and flipped over the blanket so we could see the cadaver's face. I gasped.

"If it's any consolation," one of the EMT's said, "I don't think he knew what hit him."

"I'll call JJ," David said. "The Bureau's gonna have to make a statement."

I took one last look at O'Mara's bloody neck and then walked into the house, where Emily was watching Morgan, who was sitting in the living room. His shirt was off and he was having glass shards pulled out of his back by an EMT. I wanted to hug him and scold him for making me think he was dead. But then wasn't the right time.

"You alright?" Hotch asked from behind me. I hadn't noticed that he followed me in.

"He took my credentials," Morgan said, obviously in pain. I saw a bandaged taped on one of his biceps.

"The important thing is you're okay," Hotch told him.

Morgan looked down, then held up a bullet for us all to see.

"He left me this."

"Power and manipulation," Hotch reminded him. "Don't let him get to you."

"Yeah, right," Morgan muttered.

"Don't scare me like that again," I said, playfully punching him on the forehead.

He looked up at me and then smiled a little. But then the EMT pulled out a shard less than gently and Morgan turned around to say, "Ow! C'mon, man!"

I put one hand on his other shoulder and squeezed it, leaving the room. I walked into the kitchen, where Reid, David, and Hotch were. I winced at the amount of blood on the floor. It looked like someone had been stabbed, then dragged outside, and on the door…another Eye of Providence.

"O'Mara was clearly killed outside. This was someone else. There's…signs of a struggle and a lot of blood," Reid reported.

"But no body," Hotch said.

"Just the drag marks. The human body holds five quarts of blood. I'd say there's a little more than half that here," Reid continued. "Whoever the bleeder was, they lost too much to survive."

"Foyet," I said, looking at David for an agreement.

He nodded. "It was his worst fear…that the Reaper would come back and finish the job."

"We offered him protection. He refused. It was his choice," Hotch said, obviously taking David's advice and not blaming himself.

* * *

"Why is he so focused on Foyet? What's so special about him?" Hotch asked as we sat in the police station.

"He was his only suriviving victim," JJ answered. "The only one he couldn't defeat."

"But he's not a threat," I added. "Defeating him would be no great accomplishment."

"There's something there that we're missing," Hotch said.

"What about the girlfriend?" JJ pointed out. "Amanda Bertrand. What-What do we know about her?"

"Nineteen, a freshman, she came here from Michigan to go to school," Emily said. "Foyet was a teacher's assistant in one of Amanda's courses."

"Michigan…where the Reaper had Shaunessy post the personal ad," Hotch remembered.

"That can't be a coincidence," JJ looked across the table at him.

"He told us that she was the love of his life; that he was going to propose," David said.

"But she just got here from Michigan. They only met when the class started," Morgan piped up.

"How long had she been in the class?" Hotch asked.

"Four weeks," Emily said in a shaky voice.

"So it was either love at first sight or what?" JJ asked.

"Foyet was lying," Morgan suggested.

"He was a twenty-eight year-old teacher's assistant in freshman classes," Hotch picked up the phone on the table.

"That gives him plenty of access to young girls," David added.

"Garcia?" Hotch said into the phone.

"_I'm here_," she chirped.

"Uh, what are Foyet's aliases?" Hotch asked and David handed him is notepad. "I want you to look up in Boston city records, uh, Kevin Baskin, Miles Holden, and William Parker. Try the Department of Education."

"_Well played, sir. They all work for the Department of Education, they're all substitute teachers, and they all teach computer science._"

"High school?"

"_Yeah … Oops. Scratch that—they're not _all_ working for the Department of Education._"

"They're not?"

"_No. William Parker was fired for alleged inappropriate behavior with his female students._"

Hotch looked over at David. Then he started zoning out, staring down at the table. It was like everything was clicking in his head. And then things started clicking in mine…

"Hotch?" JJ tried to get his attention.

"Colson went to see Foyet," Hotch said suddenly. "Garcia—I need you to locate Roy Colson's cell phone. George Foyet is the Reaper." He stood up and so did Reid.

"_Oh, God. Uh…okay. Triangulating now. I got it. Uh, Twenty-six thirty-three South _[unintelligible]_._"

"There must be an address that Foyet didn't give us," I said.

* * *

I rode with Emily and Reid to the address. We snuck around the house and went in the back way with Morgan. Inside the dining room sat that Roy Colson guy with his laptop. But directly in front of us was George Foyet, aiming a gun at the frightened writer. Fortunately for him, Hotch and David were behind him, aiming their guns at Foyet.

"I'm gonna be bigger than Bundy," he said cockily, not the whimpering man whom we had met earlier.

"Well, you can't enjoy it if you're dead," Hotch pointed out. He looked over at Morgan, whose gun was the closest to the back of Foyet's big, pompous head, and slightly nodded.

"If you know me so well, how come so many had to die to bring you here?"

"That's your choice, not mine. _You're_ the serial killer."

Foyet considered this for a moment.

"That's right," he said in a quiet voice. He then turned around and looked straight at Morgan. "Hello, Derek." He smirked, and then put his gun down on the table.

Morgan put his gun away and roughly manhandled Foyet.

"Where's my badge?" he growled. And when Foyet didn't respond (other than snickering a little), Morgan grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled it back. "Where is it, you son of a bitch?"

"I'm gonna be more famous than you even realize," Foyet said.

"Keep dreaming," Morgan let go of his head and marched him out of the room. We followed, except Hotch, who made sure if Colson was okay.

* * *

As soon as we had gotten back from Boston, David joined Hotch up in his office. Just as I was settling in to do some paperwork, JJ walked by, telling us that Foyet had escaped.

"Guards found him in his cell gargling blood and convulsing. They rushed him to the prison hospital," JJ said as she led Hotch and David down to our level.

"Give me the US Marshal's office," Hotch requested as I stood up to go meet them.

"I already called Don Riley. I offered our assistance. He said they'd call us if they needed it," JJ told him.

"Boston Field Office just identified documents from Foyet's house," Emily said.

"Here's schematics for the electrical, heating, and water ducts at East Woburn Correctional Facility," Reid said, handing Hotch the items.

"He had the schematics?" he asked.

"Not just for Woburn—for every jail, prison, and courthouse in Massachusetts."

"And ten years to plan," David said.

"They're gonna find him, right?" Garcia asked from a few feet away.

Hotch looked at the TV in the background. It was playing bird's eye footage of the search.

"No, they're not," he told her.

Morgan turned around, a determined, angry look on his face. It was amplified by the butterfly stitches on his cheek.

"He said he'd be more famous than we knew… And he was right."


	3. House On Fire

** David absentmindedly stroked** my hair as we cuddled on the couch. We were watching _Casablanca_, but I was having a hard time concentrating on anything other than the heartbeat under my ear.

I breathed in rhythm with him and put my hand on his chest. I was so comfortable just curled up against him that I could've fallen asleep right then and there.

"Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life," David whispered along with Humphrey Bogart.

I smiled and nuzzled him. I was closing my eyes when David's phone rang.

He grabbed the remote from the table beside him and paused the movie. I sat up and watched as he picked up his phone and answered it.

"Rossi."

The look he gave me signified that it was a work-related call. I could faintly hear JJ's voice, but not enough to take in anything.

"Yeah, I can pick her up," David winked at me. "You should call her first, though. Wake her up for me."

He closed his cell phone and I quirked a brow.

"Worktime?" I said, even though I knew the answer.

"Three…two…"

_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!_

I rolled my eyes and pulled my own cell phone out of my back pocket as it vibrated again.

"McCarthy," I said, faking the grog JJ was probably expecting as it was almost midnight.

"_Sorry to wake you up, but we've got a case_," she said. "_Rossi's coming to get you soon._"

"Okay, thanks for the warning," I said, giving David a sidelong glance. "See you in a few, Jayje."

"_See you_."

I hung up and put my phone back in my pocket.

"You should've been an actress," David smirked and I playfully whacked him on the chest.

"C'mon, we should get going."

"She's not expecting us for awhile," he responded, grabbing my hands and pulling me into his lap. He took my cheeks in his hands and started kissing me so aggressively I feared my lips would bruise.

* * *

_I am _so_ afraid of fire… _I thought as we watched a clip from WLPQ. There were fire trucks outside of a building. I wanted to turn around in my swivel seat and look at David, who was sitting on a counter behind the table.

Since it was so late, most of us were dressed down. Morgan, who was standing close to the screen with a mug of coffee in his hands and Reid beside him, was in a dark brown sweatshirt. I wasn't sure if he had a shirt on underneath because the top was zipped down a little. (Don't worry, it didn't get me all hot and bothered…) Then David was wearing a black knitted shirt with a suit jacket over it and jeans—big surprise there. I was wearing a green pullover sweatshirt that my brother had gotten me from his Dartmouth days, and a pair of jeans as well. Even Hotch wasn't dressed up. He was wearing one of those sweaters that zips up at the top.

"This is news footage from a movie theater in Royal, Indiana. Population: 2000," JJ told us. "Earlier tonight, nineteen people were killed."

"And they're sure it's arson?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah, two days ago, the same thing happened at the local recreation center. Twelve victims…no survivors," she explained.

"I-I heard about that," Emily stammered.

"Yeah, it was all over the news," I shivered. What a scary way to die…

"Uh, there were some details that, uh, didn't make the news," JJ said. "A week and a half earlier, there were some fires at a convenience store, a local restaurant… Luckily, it was after hours, so no one was hurt."

"So, whoever set these went from no victims to thirty-one in less than two weeks," David said, almost making me shiver again. What an effect this man had on me… "That's a hell of an escalation."

"Why didn't they call us in sooner?" Emily asked.

"The local police and fire department knew they were dealing with an arsonist, but they had no _idea_ he'd become a killer," JJ said.

"Most arsonists _don't_," Reid piped up and walked over the table to take a seat. "They just like setting fires. Any deaths that occur are almost always accidental."

"Thirty-one victims is not an accident," Morgan pointed out.

"Police chief knows he made a mistake," Hotch said. "And he learned the hard way that even though not all arsonists are killers, they do have one thing in common—once they start…they can't stop."

* * *

"Based on the limited population of Royal, the unsub is most likely a local male between the ages of seventeen and thirty," Reid said, walking down the aisle of the jet with a case file in hand.

David, who had taken off his suit jacket, was sitting in the window seat across the table from JJ, who was sitting next to Morgan, who had traded his sweatshirt for a lavender shirt. Hotch, in a suit now, was leaning over the empty seat and Emily was in one of those recliners while Reid and I were leaning nearby her. Across from us, on the laptop screen on the table was Garcia.

"_What? Arson is a sexist industry?_" she asked.

"Uh, f-for the most part, yeah. Only twelve percent of arsonists are female."

"Apparently women just aren't inclined to burn things," Emily said sarcastically, making me snicker.

"Well, let's go with the numbers. Focus on males," Hotch's eyes never left his file.

"Well, we can scratch hero-complex off the list. He hasn't left anyone _to_ save," Morgan pointed out.

"Yeah, but we can't rule out firefighters and other first responders," I said.

"_Howsabout I do a background check on all local firefighters and EMT's?_" Garcia suggested.

"And flag anyone with a history of being first on the scene," Hotch added.

"Or anyone with a juvenile record that includes vandalism or small nuisance fires," David said.

"_I will look at everything from firebug to flamethrower_."

"JJ, check out the news footage. I want the word out that we'd like to see any personal videos or photos of the fire," Hotch said to our liaison. "Arsonists like to watch. And if our unsub stuck around, maybe somebody will recognize him."

"'Mon it," she said.

"Locals find anything in their call logs that resemble the unsub's MO?" Morgan asked and David shrugged. "I mean, he may have staged practice runs."

"According to the fire chief's report, there was nothing similar in the past year," David told him.

"Garcia, extend your search state-wide. The unsub may have done his practicing far enough away so as not to arouse suspicion," Hotch said.

"_I will cast a wide net, sir_."

"Thank you," Hotch murmured.

"I grew up in a small town. People are gonna assume anyone we question is guilty," JJ said.

"The last thing we want is for this to turn into a witch hunt," David said.

"That's exactly what this is. We're just gonna have to keep the locals from realizing it," Hotch pointed out. "Garcia, I want you to find out everything you can about the thirty-one victims and I don't mean just their paper trail. I need to know everyone related to them, everybody they owed money to, everybody they had an argument with."

I looked at him. That seemed like a little much to ask of her…

"_Sir, if I'm hearing you right, you're saying I'm the witch hunter,_" Garcia deadpanned.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

* * *

While JJ and Hotch were meeting Chief Carlson and Doctor Rawlings, Emily and Morgan went to the theater, and David and I went to the recreation center.

"Me and Danny are both volunteers," a man said as he took us around the charred remains. "The whole company is. Got about twenty firefighters, plus their own truck and pumper."

"And EMT runs a two person crew twenty-four/seven," said a young woman in an official-looking jacket. She came up behind us.

"We managed to get it out pretty fast," the man said.

"Not fast enough," the woman added. "All those people…"

David and I turned to look at her. She shook her head, her bob of auburn-colored hair bouncing a little. She started straight at David and asked,

"Who would have so much hate?"

"Someone whose rage has been building for years," he explained, looking around.

"But what he did…ugh," she couldn't finish her statement.

"The unsub knew exactly what he was doing," I said sadly.

"He's been practicing for…" David stepped over something and continued walking so I followed him, "a long time. Nuisance fires, his vandalism…he may have even burned himself."

"Oh, that sounds like every single boy who's ever grown up in Royal," the woman remarked as we located ourselves somewhere stable. "I don't know if you noticed, but there's really not a lot to do here."

"You have our reports, all the records are in there," the man with the silvery-white hair said.

"Maybe so. But we all know there are times when things…" David looked like he was trying to find a gentle way to put what he was saying, "don't get reported. Times when you're…" now he stepped forward, and it seemed like his intentions were to intimidate the man, "just trying to protect someone. Just trying to, um, make the situation go away."

The man looked somewhere else, as if remembering some big secret thing that had never been reported.

"We're just trying to help people out," he said, finally looking back at David. "Sometimes the best way to do that is to forget that it ever happened."

"We're gonna need to know about those times," I said.

* * *

Garcia had found some similar nuisance fires in a town called Franklin while we were gone. She had sent us the names and pictures of some suspects. Meanwhile, Hotch assigned us all to go to the funeral service for all of the victims to see if there was any inappropriate behavior.

The priest spoke, but I didn't pay much attention. I just ambled along the edge of the pews, watching people, recognizing faces.

I saw eighteen year-old Brian Miller, a good-looking boy with shaggy dark hair who had been vandalizing property nearly his whole life. I also saw twenty-seven year-old John Clayton, a guy with stubble and a long, dark ponytail, who had set fire to his neighbor's garage "accidentally" a month after filing a complaint that the neighbor killed his dog.

I made eye contact with Emily, who was on the same side of the church as me and looked over at Brian Miller. But just then a loud siren started wailing and claimed everyone's attention.

Well, everyone except us.

I hoped that it wasn't another arson, but in my gut, I knew that it was. I looked over at Hotch, who was on the phone at the back of the church with David and the doctor. I was willing to bet two hundred bucks that it was JJ.

"People, please, calm down," the priest said in the echoing microphone. "I'm sure it's nothing."

I watched as Hotch said something to David and I started walking over to them when David replied. But before I could reach them, the three men started to leave the room. I looked behind me and saw Morgan, Emily, and Reid following me up to the doors and next thing we knew, we were on our way to the next crime scene.

* * *

Morgan, David, and I stepped out from our SUV, staring at the burnt wreckage of what once was a bar called "Pop's Place". Several firefighters were working, while one stared at the building in distress.

"Captain," Morgan said as he walked over to the solitary man. "Hey, Captain. Can we get a word?"

The fire captain looked at the three of us as he came up behind him and then turned back to the building.

"Started in the kitchen… Looks like he came around to the back and tossed a cocktail through the window," he said.

"Different delivery system," David reported. "That's a big deviance from his MO."

"But perfect for this location," I sighed.

"I dunno, though. A space this small, he shouldn't have been able to pour the gasoline without being noticed," Morgan said. "Nobody saw a thing?"

Half-heartedly, the captain shook his head.

"Witnesses say they heard an explosion," he said.

"Well, I guarantee he stuck around to watch," I looked at David.

The fire captain then took us to the back of the bar. There was something about him… A sad sense of resentment towards us. I wondered why.

"Bar matches his previous locations," Morgan said. "Another local hotspot."

"Only five victims this time. Why lower the body count?" David asked.

"Guys," I said, pointed at a chain dangling from part of the remaining structure by the door. Attached to it was a padlock. "There's something else that's different."

David pointed to the padlock and looked at the captain.

"Front and back?"

"He really wanted to make sure nobody got out this time," Morgan said.

"But why bother?" I asked. "No one made it out of the other ones."

"Maybe he knew the fire department would show up sooner."

"Yeah. We're faster now. Practice makes perfect," said the captain bitterly. "What the hell difference does it make? And what good are _you_ guys doing us? You see chains, figure he didn't want anyone to get out. I could've told you that."

"We're not criticizing anyone," David told him. "Our job is to look at the same things _you_ do, but to try to see them from a different perspective."

The captain nodded.

"Sure."

"Look, all due respect, Captain, but you look at that chain and you say the killer wanted to make sure nobody got out, right? Well, we look at that chain and we see a little more. That chain is different than the first two fires. Now, either we're looking at an entirely new arsonist…or this unsub wanted to make absolutely certain that nobody got out. Now, if this is true, that means something changed. Maybe his emotions changed, maybe his agenda—but something. See, this chain tells us _this_ is the fire that matters. _This_ fire's gonna help us catch this guy," Morgan said, leaving the captain to just stare at us like he knew we were correct, but didn't want to give us the full satisfaction.

David, Morgan, and I moved out to the street and found Hotch and Carlson. Behind them was a fire truck. The young EMT who had gone with David and me to the recreation center was sitting inside the truck in casual clothing. She seemed distraught. A firefighter tended to her, but she didn't look physically hurt. Meanwhile, the sole survivor, a bartender, was in the hospital.

"Anything?" Hotch asked, coming up to meet us. Carlson walked past.

"We've got a completely different MO," I told him.

"Assuming it's not a copycat, we know why the unsub wasn't at the funeral," David added. "Someone in that bar was more important to him than _anything_ else," he jerked his thumb back towards the bar.

"Morgan, call Garcia. Tell her we need to know absolutely everything there is to know about these last five victims, and we need to know it now," Hotch ordered. "I'll go tell Chief Carlson we want to talk to his officers."

* * *

"All of the first four fires—the convenience store, the restaurant, the rec. center, and the movie thee-_a_-ter—are indicative of a revenge arsonist," Reid told the officers. "That's someone who's seeking retaliation for an injustice; whether real or imagined."

"Revenge arsonists often target group headquarters, such as churches or government buildings," Emily supplemented.

"This unsub has chosen local gathering places with large numbers of potential victims inside," said Hotch.

"It's clear to us that he's decided to target this community as a whole," I said.

"That tells us that the unsub is a local, someone who lives or grew up in Royal," David said.

"But he _feels_ like an outsider," Morgan added. "As if his community has wronged him in some type of way. These fires are just his way of striking back, trying to draw attention to himself."  
"These fires not only killed innocent people, they also gave the unsub a sense of power over the community," Emily said.

"But somehow, those fires were lacking. They didn't exact the correct measure of punishment or attract enough attention," David said.

"Or they didn't attract the attention of the right person," I piped up.

"So, with the bar fire, he didn't increase the number of victims," Reid said. "He reduced them."

"That's why the third fire is _key_," Hotch said. "He's not striking out at the community as a _whole_ anymore. He's now striking out at one or more individuals."

"You're sure it's the same guy?" the captain, now dressed more casually, asked.

"The odds of another arsonist in a town this small are almost negligible," Reid told him.

"That's why we need to concentrate on _these_ victims. These five will hold the key," Hotch said.

"So, all we gotta do is just figure out who would've wanted to hurt 'em," Carlson said.

"It may not be that simple," David told him.

"This type of rage tends to stem from things that people keep buried," Morgan added. "Things they just don't talk about."

"Which is why we're gonna have to dig deeply," Hotch said.

"Understood," Carlson nodded.

* * *

David and Hotch went to visit the bartender in the hospital. In the meantime, I stayed at the police department with my other teammates.

"So, tell us about the bar victims," Emily requested of Garcia.

Reid and I were standing in front of a corkboard covered in pictures of the five victims' faces.

"Alright. Hilda and Roger Drake," Reid said.

"_She was a teacher, he sold insurance_," Garcia told us.

"Friends, enemies?" I asked.

"_Oh. No, nothing like that. They seemed sweet. Their biggest problem was finding baby names. Hilda was pregnant_."

This seemed to disturb JJ, as she was a mother herself.

"You sure?" she asked. "The ME hasn't even started yet."

"_Now, people in Royal take out ads. Uh, 'Lordy-Lordy Look who's Forty', 'Ask Jane What She was Doing at the American Legion on Friday Night'_…"

"That's just wrong," Emily commented.

"That's small-town life for ya," JJ said bitterly. "Your business is everybody's business."

"_There was a belly-watch on Hilda_," Garcia continued.

"Uh, what about Eric Gall?" JJ asked.

"_Oh, Eric. He was a boozer. He spent most of his time at Pop's Place. I've got a few drunk and disorderlies, but he seems harmless. And given the amount of rounds he bought, it is safe to say the whole town loved him._"

Morgan's phone started ringing.

"It's Hotch," he told us. "Yeah, what's up? …Mm-hmm … Okay. I got it." Morgan hung up. "'Kay, well, they managed to speak to the bartender. According to her, there was a guy there before the fire. He didn't speak to anybody and he kept switching seats. She didn't seem to recognize him."

"Okay, wait," I got up from my seat and walked over to the corkboard. "So, she knew…the _owner_ and the boozer and the husband wouldn't have kept changing seats."

"If the bartender didn't recognize him, maybe he's just not from Royal," JJ suggested.

"That's not necessarily true," Reid pointed out. "What if she knew him and she just didn't realize it?"

"What? Like a disguise?"

"The fire captain said the unsub knew the layout of the movie theater. He used that knowledge to light the fire, but at the bar, the unsub kept changing his seats."

"Which would give him a better view of the entrances and exits," Emily said.

"So he was studying the layout. He wasn't familiar with the area," Morgan added.

"What if he grew up in Royal and moved away?" I put forward. "Garcia—what year was that bar built?"

"_Uh, the bar was built…fiiiive—six years ago_," she replied.

"Uh, and what about the movie theater?" Emily asked.

"_The movie theater was built in the forties. It was a single-screen; they divided it two years ago. Rec. center was built in the late seventies._"

"I'm gonna call Hotch," Morgan said, dialing his number.

* * *

"_Jason Elliot opened Pop's Place six years ago when he moved to Royal from Indianapolis_," Garcia said as Hotch and David came in.

"Why? Does he have friends or family here?" JJ asked.

"_No. None that I could find_."

"What about the bar? Did Jason buy it from someone? Take over their business?" Morgan asked.

"_No. Jason started the bar himself. He-he named it after his father, who, by the way, was the sole beneficiary._"

"Makes sense," Emily shrugged. "He was single."

"_Well, he _was_ single. Up until a couple days ago because two days ago, Jason married Tina Wheeler_," Garcia lifted up a picture of a short-haired woman.

David and I looked at each other.

"The EMT," he said.

"_Yeah. And I checked her out originally as one of the first respondents, but her work record's, like, squeaky-clean, so I let it go until I realized she married Jason, and then I did some more aggressive digging—which, I should remind you, you _asked_ me to do—and it turns out that…Tina's parents died in a fire when she was five. After they died, her and her brother, Tommy, were sent to live with their grandparents in Royal_."

"Send us everything you have on them," Hotch requested.

"_Well, that's just it. I've got…I've got plenty on Tina. But I-I can't really find anything on her brother. Tina, she, uh, lived in Royal, she went to a community college a few towns over, got a degree, took a job, worked hard, married Jason. Uh…but…Tommy. It's like…h-he just disappeared._"

"Find him, Garcia."

* * *

"We believe Jason Elliot may have been the target," Hotch told Carlson and Dr. Rawlings.

"Jason?" Carlson asked incredulously.

"The bartender said that Jason stopped by the bar at the same time each day to pick up the cash and take it to the bank," David said from his seat beside me.

"Which would've made him an easy target for anyone who knew his schedule," I added.

"I don't get all this," Carlson admitted. "Uh, Jason was a good man. It may sound corny to you, but…everybody loved him."

"Two days ago, Jason Elliot married Tina Wheeler," Reid said carefully.

"Yeah, she told me about it yesterday," Rawlings piped up. "All the tragedies made them not wanna wait. It's a damn shame."

"What can you tell us about Tina's brother Tommy?" Hotch asked.

Carlson hesitated. He looked from Hotch to the medical doctor.

"_Tommy_?" Rawlings asked.

"Um," Carlson started. "Nobody's seen him around here in more than ten years."

"Uh, we actually think they may have. They just might not recognize him," I said.

"How is that possible?" Rawlings asked.

"Well, he's aged in ten years," I explained. "And he'd be sure to go unnoticed."

"Garcia," Hotch cued our tech analyst.

"_Tommy Wheeler. Little Tommy Wheeler. You remember him_," she sounded angry. "_He and his sister Tina moved to Royal when he was five. Doc Rawlings was his pediatrician. Apparently early medical records indicated Tommy may have been emotionally unbalanced._"

"Tommy was a little unstable," Rawlings nodded. "Uh, his parents dying brought that out."

"_Granted I don't have a medical degree, but my guess is…watching his parents die in a fire didn't help Tommy's emotional well-being_," Garcia said icily.

"What about Tina?" Morgan asked. "How did the fires affect her?"

"Uh…Tina wasn't as damaged by it as…he was," Rawlings said with a little difficulty. "Uh, she adjusted more quickly."

"She was Tommy's lifeline," Carlson spoke up.

"She was more than that. In-In a situation like this, no parents, new environment, grandparents probably too old to take care of them, Tina became Tommy's whole world," Reid explained.

"Sister. Mother. Family," David added.

"They were very close," Rawlings said.

"Close enough that Tina distorted Tommy's lovemap."

"Uh, the way an individual gives or receives love, their lovemap, is established by the age of six. With the death of their parents, Tommy's lovemap revolved _exclusively_ around Tina," Reid said.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was like they were in their own little world," Carlson reflected. "By the time they were eight, they even had their own language." He thought for a moment. "It was a bit disturbing."

"_But understandable_," Garcia interjected. "_Perfectly understandable._"

"Maybe," Carlson nodded.

"So, what happened?" Hotch said. I noticed he was holding his forehead.

"_What do you _think_ happened? People talked. That's the only real occupation in Royal._"

"There were rumors," Carlson admitted. Rawlings seemed uncomfortable. "People said Tommy and Tina were…too close. Not that they were ever confirmed, though."

"_No. It wasn't. But then, the truth didn't matter._"

"…After the rumors started," Carlson gave the computer screen Garcia was on a look of frustration, "things got ugly. People pointed fingers. Tommy got expelled from school."

"_Based on nothing but hearsay_."

"_Not_ true. The school had cause."

"_No, they didn't_—"

"Garcia," Hotch tried to interrupt.

"_I spoke to his teacher. She told me how the whole school and the whole town turned against him based on nothing but a rumor,_" said Garcia intensely.

"Garcia," Hotch repeated.

"_She also told me another rumor: in this one, fourteen year-old Tommy was beaten within an inch of his life by adults. Grown men._"

Carlson hesitated and found himself backed into a proverbial corner.

"I didn't hear about it until after the fact," he said. "There was nothing I could do."

"_Broken bones. Punctured lung. All because of a rumor_."

"I couldn't go after anyone based only on my suspicions. _Nobody_ was talking about it. Not even Tommy … I spoke to his grandparents and told them what to do."

"_Yeah. So, they moved Tommy to a Colorado boarding school. They cut off all ties between him and his sister. It was as if Tommy never existed._"

"It was for the best. They would've killed him."

"If what Garcia said is true, then this town's actions went a long way towards making Tommy who he is," I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. Incest isn't right in my book. But neither is attempted murder.

There was silence for a moment. What I had said must have made Carlson and Rawlings even more uncomfortable.

"We need to talk to Tina," David stated.

* * *

I found myself in an SUV with David and Hotch. We drove to Tina's house with Carlson and another one of his officers.

"Go out around. Check the back," Carlson ordered the other cop.

"Yes, sir."

Everything seemed quiet as we went up the front porch. Carlson knocked on her front door.

"Tina! It's me, Brad!" Carlson opened up the screen door and Hotch pulled out his cell phone. "Tina!"

"Morgan, find out if Tina showed up for work today," Hotch said.

Meanwhile, David and I were following Carlson into the house, as the front door was unlocked.

"Tina!" David called, holding out his gun as well.

"Tina!" I said, walking into the empty living room. I could David and Carlson saying her name. But no one found a thing. "Clear!"

"Nobody's here," Carlson reported once Hotch stepped inside the house.

I noticed that David was holding a cell phone with a latex glove. But before we could elaborate, Hotch's phone started ringing.

"Yeah, Morgan?" he answered. There was a pause. "Tina didn't show up for her shift. Thanks."

Once Hotch hung up, David gestured to the object in his hand.

"She left her cell phone," he said.

"Do you think it was Tommy?" Carlson asked.

"Put out an APB for Tommy and Tina. Close all roads in and out of Royal," Hotch ordered. Carlson's comrade left the house as soon as he got in.

"No, no," Carlson said softly. "He loves her. He wouldn't hurt her."

"He will if she rejects him."

* * *

Carlson re-entered the house around seven PM and sighed. We had spent a bit of time searching Tina's house for clues, but were coming up short. We had even called in Emily and Reid to help out.

"We've locked down the town," he said, "and put out statewide alert. So far," he closed the door and cocked his head, "nothing."

"Where, in Royal, would Tommy take his sister?" Hotch asked.

"It's hard to say."

"It's likely to be a place that's important to the both of them. Maybe a place that they went to together as kids," I shrugged from my seat at the dining room table.

"I dunno," Rawlings shook his head. "The only place I can think of is their grandparents' old house. But…that was torn down years ago."

"That's not gonna help us," Hotch told him.

"I've got pictures of her with the grandparents and friends," Emily reported. "Nothing with Tommy."

"Garcia was right," David said. "After he was sent away, Tommy no longer existed … Not even as a memory." He sighed and then looked at me. "Hunter—come upstairs with me."

I nodded and got out of my seat. I followed him up the stairs and we went into Tina's bedroom. I searched through one bureau, he searched through the other. Nothing. But then I got down on the floor and found a shoebox under her bed. I emptied it on her floral comforter and turned to David when I saw the stack of pictures.

"I found Tommy," I said, fanning out a few of them. There were photos of them hugging each other. One was Tommy kissing her forehead. "Or what she had left of him."

When we went downstairs, I handed the shoebox to Reid. David and I helped him paw through the mementos. But Reid found the most crucial thing of all.

"Hotch, I think we have something here," he said. I looked at what he had unfolded. It looked like a certificate or ticket or something. "What dance is this?" Reid asked Carlson.

"The, uh, spring formal," he explained. "They hold it every year at the community center."

"May of '98. This was just before Tommy was beaten and forced out of town," Reid said.

"Is this dance something Tommy and Tina would've gone to?" Hotch asked after a moment of consideration.

"It's a big event," Carlson said. "All the kids go even if they don't have formal dates."

"So, they could've gone together?"

"Absolutely."

Next thing I knew, we were speeding down to the community center, sirens blaring. We opened the front door and held our guns out as we hurried up the stairs. And as we got closer, we could hear yelling. Soon, we found Tommy and Tina on the dance floor. The latter was pounding on her brother's chest, screaming for him to let go of her. On the ground, sat a can of gasoline.

"Tommy, let her go!" Hotch shouted.

"Let her go, son!" Carlson added.

I went into the room as Morgan came in through the back. Tommy lit a match and then kicked over the gas can. The clear liquid poured out into the wooden floor quickly. Tommy had a crazed grin on his face. He was holding Tina with one arm wrapped around her neck.

"I'll burn the whole town down," he threatened in a breaking voice.

"No, you won't," Hotch got slightly closer. "Not if you love her … Look at her, Tommy. Look at her."

Finally, he let go of her neck, but grabbed her wrist, and stared at his sister. She stepped about a foot away, cowering. His eyes were filled with lust.

"If you really love her, then let her go," Hotch said.

"Please, Tommy," Tina rasped.

"You don't wanna hurt her, son," David added.

Tommy looked away. His breathing was choppy and audible. Then he turned back to Tina.

"I-I-I-I love you," he whispered.

"I know," Tina responded tearfully.

Tommy's match had burnt out. He dropped it and let go of Tina, letting Morgan cuff him. I came up behind Tina and pulled her away, letting her cry into my bulletproof vest. She nearly fell to her knees, but I held her up and rubbed her shoulder. David looked at me and I pursed my lips. I was glad this case was done and over with.


	4. Conflicted

** "Daniel Keller, twenty-one,"** JJ showed us a picture of a big, muscular college student who was found curled up in a hotel closet. "A junior at Benjamin Franklin University. He was killed last night while Spring Breaking in South Padre Island."

"COD: asphyxiation," JJ continued. "He was the second victim to be murdered there in the past three nights. The first was William Browder, also on Spring Break, COD: asphyxiation." On the screen were photos of the other big, muscular college student. "They were both sexually assaulted prior to death."

"_Men_…being raped and murdered…on Spring Break?" Emily sounded surprised—and I didn't blame her. "Well, that's a twist," she muttered.

"So far, the deaths have been localized to one hotel," Hotch said.

"Uh, the Hudson Street Hotel," JJ clicked a button on the remote and we saw a picture of the hotel's webpage. "Initially, the hotel was filled to capacity, but lost twenty percent occupancy overnight." She shrugged her shoulders in a 'whatcha gonna do' way.

"We should get a list of everyone who works there. There's a good chance one of them is the unsub or at the very least has interacted with him," Morgan suggested.

"Yeah, Garcia's already on that," JJ said. "Both victims were discovered by hotel staff. The last after online checkout indicated the room had been vacated."

"So he wanted the bodies discovered," I summed up. "And sooner rather than later."

"Look at the way they're posed," Reid walked up to the screen. "Naked…cowering in the fetal position."

"He's sending a message," David said. "Something about this is important to him. We just need to figure out…what."

"And we need to do it soon," Hotch stood up and so did Emily. "The police suspect the unsub to be another vacationing student. Though I'm not willing to rule out local involvement."

"Makes sense. If the killer is a student, he could be halfway across the country by the time _we're_ onto them," Rossi also stood up.

"If he's a local, we could lose him as soon as his victim pool dries up," Emily said.

"Either way, we're running out of time," Hotch read from the file and I got up. "South Padre's Spring Break season ends this weekend."

* * *

"I have three fours and six tens. I'll put this wild on your seven green cards and discard this two. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week," I smirked at Emily from across the table.

She pouted and threw her last three cards down.

"I think that's the farthest I've ever gone playing this game with you," she said as I pulled all of the Phase 10 cards towards me and put them in the box.

"Practice makes perfect," I winked and clicked my tongue. Then I stood up and walked over to the carry-on rack, where I reached up and put the cards in my bag.

"You never did teach me how to play," David said from the bench behind my chair.

"Ha. Save yourself," Emily groaned. "She doesn't teach. She _destroys_."

I rolled my eyes playfully and got back in my seat, but sat on my knees, facing David, with my elbows propped up on the top of it.

"Last I knew, I _started_ to teach you, but then you stopped me and told me to go to sleep," I mentioned.

"Because you were exhausted," he pointed out. "Then I told you to teach me later. A promise you have yet to fulfill."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and narrowed my eyes down at him. "Touché."

I turned around in my seat and sank down, grabbing my file from the table. Emily had already started looking through hers. I was about to open mine and reread some of the documents when something moving caught my eye.

One of the TV screens in the wall was on. I couldn't really see what was going on, but I'm pretty sure JJ wasn't watching _The Real World_. Whatever it was, it made her sigh and turn to us.

"National media's picked up on the story," she said as Reid got up from his seat and stood next to her. "We have to make a statement when we land."

"Well, we want to make people aware without obviously causing panic," Hotch replied.

"Stress hyper vigilance, the whole buddy-system; yeah, I'm all over it. I just don't think anyone's gonna listen."

"What do you mean?" Reid asked.

"C'mon. Drunk college students don't exactly wanna hear they shouldn't talk to strangers," she said gently.

Reid made the Gideon Face—you know, pushing the corners of your mouth _waaaaaay_ down—and walked past us to sit next to Morgan.

"Right."

"Was there any DNA left on the scene?" Emily asked from across the table as I thumbed through the file.

"_Uh, yeah. Too much…DNA_," Garcia said from the computer screen nearby. "_This portion of the Garcia Show will be brought to you by the letter 'I' for 'icky'. The lab has recovered over a hundred different trace samples, as multiple guests create a cesspool of DNA. Also…there is no way to determine the exact time of '_secretion_' or to eliminate anyone actually working at the hotel_."

It made me smile listening to how much difficulty Garcia was having while giving us the dirty details. But it also grossed me out to think that every time I sleep on hotel sheets, someone had done the nasty on them or thrown up on them or maybe even killed someone on them. Garcia was right—icky.

"Were you able to find any connection between the first two victims?" Morgan asked.

"_No. They-they grew up in different states. They went to colleges on opposite coasts. I did the whole cross-reference-credit-card thing. Couldn't make a connect._"

"So, the hotel's the only common denominator," David said.

"_Yup. And it-it should be noted that the first victim, William Browder, wasn't exactly a registered guest_."

"Well, that's a popular thing to do," I pointed out. "I mean, kids these days do it all the time. They rent a room and they pack in as many people as possible to save costs. We could be dealing with _hundreds_ of unregistered guests."

"We need to check every guest, whether they're on the books or not," Hotch said.

"Male raping male," JJ sat down in the chair across the aisle from me. "So, are we presuming our unsub or victims could be gay?"

"That's not necessarily true," Reid pointed out. "In male rape, sexual preference typically has _less_ to do with the crime than the power and dominance the attacker feels from the attack itself."

"Still, that's a question we should ask the families when we interview them," Emily suggested. "It could help us determine how the unsub met the victims."

"We've got a lot of work to do. Emily, JJ, and I will go to the local PD and start victimology," Hotch got up and handed Dave some pictures of the Hudson Street Hotel. "The rest of you…there's your new home."

* * *

Morgan parked in front of the hotel. He, David, Reid, and I got out of the car and walked into the lobby.

"You must be the FBI," said a pretty brunette woman as she stepped out of the gift shop to meet us, her hands on her hips. She was decked out in the hotel uniform.

"David Rossi," he shook her hand. "These are agents Morgan, McCarthy, and Reid."

"Julie Riley," she said as she shook our hands in turn. "I'm the manager."

"You were on duty when the latest body was discovered?" Morgan asked.

"That's right," Julie nodded.

"Did you happen to notice anyone out of the ordinary?" Reid inquired.

"I'm afraid not. You see so many faces during the Spring Break season, they all start to blur."

"We need to set up interviews with the rest of your staff as soon as possible," Rossi told her. "Also talk to the hotel guests."

"Of course," she said amiably.

We all started walking further into the lobby. I noticed a few security cameras perched up on the bamboo walls.

"How many cameras do you have on the property?" I asked.

"Not enough," Julie admitted as we stopped by the front desk. There was another pretty brunette woman working there. "We have all the, uh, main entrances and the garage covered. But the hallways and the service tunnels aren't equipped."

"Can you show us the room where the last body was found?" David asked.

Soon enough, we were putting our latex gloves on and entering the latest crime scene. Behind David, who came in after me, was Julie.

"I'll, um," she gulped, "I'll start rounding up the rest of the staff for you to talk to." She seemed to be shaken just being in the doorway to the room.

"Thanks," David said, opening up his notepad. "No signs of struggle were reported. Everything seemed…normal when housekeeping arrived."

As he spoke, Morgan pulled back the window shades and Reid looked at the bed knobs. I, meanwhile, got on my stomach and looked under the bed, finding nothing.

"Look at this," Reid said. I got up on my knees to see what he was talking about. "Scratch marks on the footboard. The victims were _bound_ before the struggle began."

I stood up with Reid and looked at David. I watched as he put his notepad into the pocket inside of his jacket.

"Well, that would make sense," Morgan said. "Both victims _were_ in pretty good shape."

"Probably needed to tie them up to control them," I added.

"My question is," David pulled up on the thighs of his jeans and crouched down before the other bed knob, "was it consensual or…was it coerced?"

He got back up on his feet and we all relocated, checking out other things.

"So, if I'm the unsub and it wasn't consensual, how does this work?" Morgan asked.

"You'd have to have a weapon," I said.

Morgan pulled out his gun and pointed it at the bed, as if Daniel Keller were perched on it right then and there. David walked out around the bed, examining the situation.

"A gun to the face…means he doesn't scream out," he said.

"Look at the distance between where each of the arms were tied," Reid said, crouching down and pointing. "There's no way he could've tied that second hand himself."

"Which means the unsub did it for him," I nodded and felt my heart race as David walked back towards me.

"Which would be risky because if he knew he was in danger and he saw the opportunity, he would take it," Morgan said.

"Why not drug him and _then_ tie him up?" David suggested from next to me. "Eliminate the risk."

"The tox screen came in negative," Morgan pointed out.

"So, it's either consensual…or he has a partner," Reid said.

"He's also learning fast," Morgan added.

"What do you mean?" David asked.

Morgan turned around and walked over to the closet. He stood in front of the door.

"He hides the body in the closet. And then indicates that the guest has checked out," Now he stood by the flat screen TV on the wall. "Which means, when the housekeeper gets here…"

"Everything looks normal and she starts cleaning," David finished for him. "Wiping everything down."

"Erasing any fingerprints or DNA that could've been left on the scene," I supplemented.

"We need to talk to whoever cleaned this room," David said, walking over to Morgan. "Maybe they saw something that could tell us who was in here with Dan Keller."

* * *

Reid and Morgan went up to the roof to talk to Adam Jackson, the cleaning man who had found the body of Daniel Keller. Meanwhile, David and I went to the police station to meet Emily and Hotch.

"Morgan and Reid are finishing an interview," David reported. "What did you learn?"

"It doesn't look like either of our victims was gay," Hotch said as Emily stepped over to the couch to pick up a photograph.

"Dan Keller's girlfriend describes him as _overtly_ sexual and aggressive towards women," she handed me the picture of the victim and his pretty blonde significant other. I angled it so David could look over my shoulder. (I _know_ I was at work, but I wanted to feel him close to me.) "It caused quite a few problems in their relationship. And his friend says they were out partying prior to his death and he was definitely willing to overlook the fact that he had a girlfriend."

"Does that match with what you found at the scene?" Hotch asked.

"Yes and no," David said.

"What do you mean?" Emily asked.

"The victims were both big guys, yet there were signs of a struggle. We profiled it as either being consensual or…the unsub had a partner."

"Sounds right," Hotch said. "What's your hesitation?"

"What if it was both?"

"How so?"

"Well, even if he was confronted by two men, the first reaction of an alpha male would be to fight," I spoke up, glancing at David, hoping he wouldn't mind my interjection. Then I looked at Hotch, who considered my words.

"Not if it were a woman," he stood up from the desk he was leaning against and stared down at me. I hated that he was three quarters of a foot taller than me.

"It's Spring Break," I continued. "She lures the victim to her hotel room. Ties him up. Then once he's subdued…her partner arrives." I could feel David proudly staring at me.

"That could explain the posing and the rape," Emily stepped closer. "The victims are alpha males with aggressive sexual tendencies. The _unsub_ treats his _victims_ the way _they_ treat _women_."

"So, we have a team," Hotch said. "A woman who lures them back to their hotel room and ties them up."

"And a man who rapes and murders them," David added.

* * *

"Your unsubs have changed hotels," said Detective Reese Evans, the woman leading the case. We were standing in a different hotel, examining a new crime scene. But not a different crime.

"What can you tell us?" David asked, notepad in hand.

"The vic's name is Carl Cade—another Spring Breaker."

"Any witnesses?" Morgan stood up beside me. He had been checking under the bed.

"His friend saw him last night leave a party with a brunette in a green dress," Evans told us. "Both had been drinking for most of the day. And he only caught a glimpse of the girl _before_ they left the party. And he found the body posed," she held her arms up in a W-shape, "just like the others."

She left the room and David walked out onto the balcony. Reid, Morgan, and I followed him.

"Sounds like our theory about the partners was right," Reid said, leaning behind me to look at David, as I was standing between them.

"Woman lures the victim back," Morgan said, staring down by the pool. I noticed he had taken off his latex gloves and held them all bunched up on the railing. "She offers up a li'l kink. Ties him up."

"Only this time, the unsubs ventured outside of their comfort zone. They changed hotels," I added.

"Okay, so what's he doing? Getting bolder or smarter?"

"Well, the local police are on alert. The FBI is here," Reid pointed out. "They probably changed pattern to avoid getting caught."

David turned away from the railing and stepped toward the room.

"Or because they saw us at the other hotel," he said. "We need to go back to Hudson Street."

We went back to the first hotel and stood in the lobby. I stared up at the second floor railing and saw a cleaning man and the pretty brunette from the front desk. They were both gazing down at us. The girl looked away as soon as I caught her eye. Then I followed my party further into the hotel.

* * *

Garcia had found a surveillance video of Daniel Browder making advances towards the brunette girl—Madison Cooke. When Adam Jackson, the cleaning man from before, intervened, Daniel shoved him down, Adam paused a moment, then tackled Daniel into the pool. Apparently Adam, an uncomfortable and awkward kid who smokes weed to relieve his headaches, had told Reid and Morgan that he hadn't seen either of the victims.

Hotch called David and reported all of this. David told Morgan and Reid to go and find Adam while he and I spoke to Madison Cooke.

"Where's Adam Jackson?" David asked after we entered the office Madison was sitting in.

"I dunno. What's going on?" she wondered. There was a sense of unease about her.

"The day before the first murder, you had an altercation with the victim," I said.

"It's Spring Break. It comes with the territory," she said, like it was the most normal thing and that she couldn't believe I had the audacity to question that.

"Adam stepped in?" David continued. He sounded angry.

"Yeah."

"He doesn't strike me as the _type_ to stand up to a bully."

"The guy was being a jerk. Adam happened to be there."

"And you didn't think it was weird that the same kid ended up dead the next night?"

Madison had no rebuttal. David started to walk towards the door and she followed after us.

"It wasn't Adam," she said.

"Then why hide the fact that he got into a fight with one of the victims?" I asked.

"Julie told us not to. She was just trying to protect us both."

David took a step closer to the young woman.

"Where's Adam?" he asked in a calmer voice than before.

"I don't know," Madison shook her head. "Honestly. He's supposed to be on duty, but…he…disappears sometimes. He might be on the roof."

I pulled my cell phone out and called Derek. I followed David out of the office.

"_What is it, Hunter?_" my colleague replied.

"Morgan—check the roof."

* * *

I watched as Reid led the maintenance worker into the questioning room. Adam was a bit shorter than the doctor and had his shaggy black hair tucked behind his ears. According to Garcia, Adam's mother had been a victim of spousal abuse, and when she died, his step-father targeted him.

"Doesn't really look like the dominant partner type, does he?" Emily said, turning the corner to where I stood, Hotch at her side.

"No," the unit chief simply said.

Morgan and David opened the door that led to the window where I was standing in front of. I had one arm across my chest and was holding my lower lip between my thumb and forefinger. I felt butterflies when David stood next to me.

"He's our guy," Morgan referred to Adam.

"What makes you so sure?" Emily asked. I turned around to face my colleagues.

"It's the classic profile. He grows up with an abusive step-father. Somehow manages to escape. Suddenly, he finds himself back in the _exact_ same area where his abuser lives. He's surrounded by nothing but a bunch of alpha males that mirror that type of behavior… He snaps."

"Did he have a problem with you as an authority figure when you interviewed him?" Hotch asked.

"He backed away as if he was a little skittish."

"And Reid?" Emily wondered.

"Reid was a little less imposing and he opened up about his life."

I turned back around and watched the two men in the questioning room. Reid was calm and collected. Adam seemed tearful. But at one point, he looked like he was angry and shouting.

"Hotch."

We all turned to see JJ standing nearby. The unit chief in question walked over to her. As did David. A few moments later, they were murmuring and slowly ambling towards us. David had a sheet of paper in his hand.

"And now she's his boss," David said loud enough for me to hear it. I turned and looked at the two men. "He owes her everything."

"Adam's not the dominant—Julie is," Hotch concluded, taking out his phone and walking away as he called someone. I walked over to David as Hotch spoke with Garcia, presumably. Before I could say anything, Hotch looked at us. "Let's go."

* * *

In the SUV ride, David explained how Julie Riley was like a surrogate to Adam, bailing him out of jail, spending time with him as a child. He lived in the hotel and worked as the handyman to repay Julie.

Hotch, David, and I flashed our badges to the bouncer at the club and he let us in with no problem. It was weird for me to see my two colleagues in a place like this. Other than David's cabin, the most informal thing I'd ever seen Hotch at was the bar we sometimes went to after cases. I don't think I would ever forget that one time two years ago…

_"Hey Morgan, be careful! The one in the back could take your wallet!" Emily shouted over Rick Ross's rapping. We were carrying some drinks back to the table we were sharing with Garcia, Hotch, and Haley. Morgan was dancing with several girls. Of course._

_ "That's alright—I'll be a broke, happy man! Ha-ah," he replied, making us both laugh._

_ Garcia was eyeing him like a piece of meat, swaying with the music as though she were dancing with him, sipping from her own drink. Meanwhile, Emily and I placed the drinks on the table. The married couple greeted us._

_ "Cheers!" Hotch lifted his drink. I did too, once I sat down._

_ "Yes," Haley said._

_ "Cheers!" Emily replied before we all clinked our glasses together._

_ "So, how are they treating you at the BAU, Emily?" Haley asked._

_ "She means, 'am I being nice to you'?" Hotch corrected. Haley nodded and pointed at her husband._

_ "Actually, everyone's been incredibly nice," Emily answered._

_ "Good," Haley said._

_ "Just look at him move!" Garcia said. "Like a cat…"_

_ "More like a _dog_!" I laughed. Emily snickered from across the table._

_ "He did not ask them to dance," she pointed out defensively, her head turned toward me for that one sentence. "They asked him."_

_ "Okay," I held my hands up in a 'don't-shoot-me' way. "Okay, he's a cat."_

_ "An alley cat!" Emily added. We both laughed, but Garcia failed to see the humor._

_ "C'mon, honey, let's show 'em how it's done," Hotch grabbed his wife's hand and stood up. I ducked, narrowly dodging their outstretched arms as they walked around the table._

_ "Oh!" Emily said._

_ "I'm game if you are!" Haley replied to her husband, hitting the dance floor._

And they weren't too bad. It was just…weird to watch.

Anyway, we pushed through the bumping and grinding Spring Breakers. The ones who noticed us—two men in suits and a woman with a gun holstered at her hip plain as day—gave us weird looks.

We found a brunette woman in a little black dress dancing with a younger man in a white shirt that had a strange pattern on it. The woman was the same height as Julie, with the same hair. So we walked right on up to her, stopping as she turned around, ready to lead the guy to her bed and to his doom. She looked surprised when she saw the three of us standing right there.

"Believe me, kid," Rossi looked at the man, "this is your lucky night." He jerked his head, gesturing for the guy to leave. Julie stared at David. She looked more annoyed than worried. That concerned me.

Either she was cocky…or we had the wrong person.

* * *

Julie and Adam didn't really offer much information up. They just explained their friendship. Julie said she wouldn't make Adam kill for her. Hotch brought up the fact that she'd been raped and the investigation wasn't very thorough. The theory was that because of this, she was trying to get her revenge.

They both agreed to take polygraph tests, switching out the question-askers so they couldn't get into a rhythm.

But they both passed with flying colors—exempting one spike from Adam.

"So…where are we?" Morgan asked as he sat down with a coffee between JJ and David at the table in the police station.

"Honestly? Nowhere," David replied. "We just watched our two most viable suspects walk out the door.

"If Adam _isn't_ our unsub, he has all the makings to become one some day," I chewed on the inside of my lip and crossed my right leg over my left, accidentally nudging David's calf under the table. He gave me a sidelong glance and I mouthed an apology.

"Reid?" Hotch said.

I focused on the young doctor who was scrutinizing the laptop before him. He seemed to be onto something.

"Tell me the question that he spiked on during the polygraph," he said to Morgan.

"It was a control question to set the base line," Derek explained.

"Was it geometric equation?"

"Reid, I really think he was just intimidated. He tried, he got it wrong, but he wasn't supposed to know the answer anyway."

"What if he lied? Wh-What if, what if he _knew_ the answer to the question, but intentionally got it wrong?"

"Why would he do that…?" JJ asked.

"Because he realized that he wouldn't know that answer," Reid said.

"You're losing me, kid," Morgan told him.

"Adam said he wasn't getting any rest. He takes midday naps because he's always exhausted. He has a history of black-outs, reclusive behavior, prolonged repeated abuse suffered at the hands of a dominant male who transferred abuse from his female spouse to his pre-pubescent child."

"Where are you going with this?" Hotch asked.

"What if our unsub couple…isn't a couple at all?" Reid suggested as a phone rang in the distance.

"Dissociative Identity Disorder."

All I could think of was Tobias Hankel and his "father".

"You think Adam's a multiple personality?" David wondered.

"Wuh-it _fits_," Emily said. "Recurrent physical abuse, knowledge he shouldn't have. We've seen this before."

_Unfortunately._

"Look at this," Reid turned the laptop around and we all saw what he was watching—the footage of Adam's confrontation with William Browder. "Alright. The-The first intervention is timid. It's apprehensive, right?" Reid paused it. "But then…he gets knocked down." Reid zoomed in on Adam on the ground. "There's a moment of calm." I noticed how Reid pronounced the 'l' in the word. "And then his entire body language changes." The boy in the video looked up through his shaggy hair. "I saw this exact same transformation when Adam left the station. Only it-it wasn't rage. It was, uh…arrogance. Li-Like the alter-ego wanted me to know."

"What?" I furrowed my brow.

"I don't know. Power? Control?" Reid gave me a fleeting glance. "All I know is the person that stared me down over there was _not_ Adam. He's not assertive like that. He doesn't _make_ eye contact."

"So, you think the stress of the interrogation blurred the line between Adam and his alter personality?" JJ asked.

"I think the unsub surfaced for just moment. I-It, it knew the answer to the question, realized Adam wouldn't, and _lied_."

* * *

"I don't even know what we do with this," Morgan said to Hotch as we got into our bulletproof vests.

"We take him into custody; we let the courts decide," Hotch told him and followed me out of the door behind David and the others.

We all separated into SUVs and drove back to the Hudson Street Hotel, sirens blaring. We entered the lobby, finding it almost completely empty.

"Reid and Morgan, take the roof," Hotch ordered.

"We've got Adam's room," David told him, hurrying to the elevator with JJ in tow. I wanted to go with him, but I was afraid of suspicions arising, so I stayed with Hotch and Emily.

"Agent Hotchner," Evans called from the other side of the lobby. "In the back!"

We followed her outside with Morgan and Reid and found a bunch of Spring Breakers huddled over by a tree. Pained gasping sounds could be heard.

"Okay guys, let's back up. Back up," Evans said as we closed in. The gasping continued. "C'mon, c'mon."

We all tried to push through, shouting, "move," and "excuse me". Finally, we saw a very bloody Julie Riley lying in the bushes in a blanket. Hotch called for an ambulance.

"Julie!" Emily said loudly, getting closer to her. We both crouched down by the girl who was coughing on her own blood. "Julie, can you hear me?"

"'S-Ad," Julie choked out.

"Okay," I assumed she was trying to say that it was Adam. "Help is on the way. I need you not to move."

"It wasn't—_hic_—him. It was _strange_," the last word came out airy.

"Julie," Hotch said from beside me. "Did he say where he was going?"

"He called himself Amanda," Julie spoke half in a whisper.

"The alter personality," Reid figured.

"Reid, you were right. Where would he go?" Morgan looked up at the doctor who was standing by a nearby tree. He took a step closer to the hotel.

"Not he, _she_. Amanda. She panicked. She-She knew that we would connect this to her," he said.

"Okay, okay. So, she's feeling the pressure. She obviously knows she's running out of time. Where would she go?" I asked. It took Reid a second to turn back and give me an answer.

"She's gonna go after the man these victims represent."

I looked at Hotch.

"Garcia, _please_ tell me you know the whereabouts of Mark Harrison," Morgan said into his cell phone. As soon as she told him where, Emily looked at me and then him.

"Go," she said.

I got up and hurried after the two men. I could hear Hotch yelling for a medic as we left. David and JJ followed us to Corpus Christi. We came upon a simple house and I ran to the back of it with Morgan and Reid.

We came in the door and found nothing except for David, JJ, and Evans. Reid signaled to a door on our rights. Morgan and I held up our guns and the younger agent opened up the door, revealing a crazed-looking Adam Jackson. He was standing on the bed, holding a plastic bag around his step-father's face. The man was on his knees with Adam/Amanda's knife at his throat. It appeared that his wrists were tied behind his back. Adam/Amanda looked up at us as we stormed the bedroom.

"Amanda," Reid said.

"Stay back," Amanda replied in a high voice.

"Put the knife down," Morgan said, pointing his gun at the unsub.

"Stay back!" Amanda raised her voice and spoke slowly. "Or I'll kill him."

"You do _not_ wanna do that," Reid said calmly.

"_You_ don't know what he _did_!"

Reid hesitated, then holstered his gun.

"When Adam's mother died," he said, "his step-dad needed a new outlet for his aggression, didn't he?"

"He put Adam in dresses," Amanda said as Mark Harrison struggled to breathe. "He beat him. He _touched_ him!"

"Adam was too weak to go through all of that alone. Right? He was…just a little boy," Reid's voice kept changing volume. He whispered some words and spoke the others clearly. "He needed _you_ to protect him."

"…I could take it," Amanda said in a quiet, shaky voice. "I was stronger than he was." She looked down at Harrison. "He _deserves_ to die!"

"Amanda," Reid tried to get her attention as she glared at the top of the plastic bag. "Amanda. That's _not_ for you to decide. I _swear_ to God, if you put him down…and you come with me…I will get you _and_ Adam…the help…that you guys need."

Amanda didn't do anything but look around with her crazy eyes. There was a small groaning sound. I couldn't tell if it was her or Harrison. He gasped for a breath and then Amanda shook her head slowly, returning her focus to Reid.

"Adam will be sentenced for what I've done," she said. "You know. I can't let that happen." She removed the knife from Harrison's neck and held it up to her own.

"Amanda!" Reid said quickly. "If you kill yourself, you kill Adam. I-I don't see how that's protecting him. And you know what I know? I know that all you wanna do in this world is protect Adam."

"It's all I've ever done."

"…Why don't you and I help him together?"

"You can't help him," Amanda whispered. "I'm the only one." Harrison kept trying to breathe. "I know what I have to do. I will keep him safe…forever." She let go of the bag and Harrison fell forward, rolling off the side of the bed by the door. Amanda let go of the knife and let Morgan pull her onto her knees and cuff her.

"It's okay. You're okay," JJ murmured to Harrison after she pulled the bag off his head.

I watched as Amanda just stared at Reid with her wide, insane eyes. David reached out and grabbed the knife from the bedspread.

"Adam," Reid said. Amanda continued to stare. "_Adam_."

"Reid," I touched his shoulder. "He's gone."


	5. No One

** "So, I heard** that Reid's been visiting Amanda in the mental institution," I sipped the frozen lemonade in my cup and absentmindedly tapped the small round table at the café we were in. "He's trying to…_find_ Adam."

"Good luck to him," JJ bounced her eyebrows and drank her smoothie. "Is he still in Texas?"

"I think so," I shrugged.

"He bought a ticket back to Virginia this afternoon," Garcia quickly corrected me. I smirked and looked at her.

"I don't wanna know," Emily joked, making us all snicker.

_Bzzzzzzzz!_

JJ grabbed her phone from the table. I inwardly groaned, hoping it wasn't about work. Emily and I both stared at her as she answered the text message. We were both on pins and needles.

"Please don't be Strauss," I crossed my fingers. Emily pretended to pray from where she sat across from me. JJ was on my left and Garcia on my right.

"It's Morgan," JJ furrowed her brow. "He's asking if we want to go to the bar with him tonight to blow off some steam."

"I'm game," Emily shrugged.

"Do you think I'm going to pass on a chance to party with my sweet Derek Morgan? I think not," Garcia looked at JJ like that was obvious—which it kinda was.

"I'm free," I grinned. I didn't have any plans with David, so I didn't have to try and hide that, thankfully.

"Henry's with my parents, so," JJ started texting back, "yes…we…do."

"This oughta be fun," Emily smiled. "I love it when we all hang out outside of work."

"Same," I grinned. "We don't do it enough."

_Bzzzzzzzz!_

"He says to meet him at eight-thirty," JJ told us. "And he said that Hotch and Rossi are picking up Reid, so they'll be a little late."

"Hotch is going?" Garcia asked.

"He always _used_ to go with us."

"He always _used_ to go with Haley," I pointed out.

"Oh…right," JJ's blue eyes got even bigger.

"Maybe he's moving on," Emily shrugged again.

I always thought she and Hotch would be a cute couple, but I doubted anything would ever happen. Even if they _did_ like each other, Hotch would never break the fraternization rules. Would he?

That just made me think of David and how he hadn't gone to Strauss or HR yet.

"Right, Hunter?" Garcia nudged me with her elbow and I jumped.

"What?" I asked.

"Right," she smirked.

I looked from the satisfied Garcia to the skeptical JJ. Furrowing my brow, I looked at Emily for an explanation.

"Garcia thinks Hotch is gonna get laid tonight," she deadpanned.

"No way!" I looked at the tech analyst. "Hotch is _totally not_ the one night stand type!"

"That's what _I_ said," JJ spoke up. Out of all of us, JJ seemed to be the one who knew Hotch the best.

"Doesn't surprise me that Rossi still wants to party," Emily leered at me. "Maybe _he'll_ have the one night stand…"

I blushed and glared at her. As far as I was concerned, JJ and Garcia didn't know.

"Wait—is something going on?" JJ snapped her eyes to me.

"_Spill_," Garcia grabbed my hand.

"What? No. Nothing's going on. There's nothing _to_ spill!" I lied quickly.

"Babbling. She's babbling," Garcia smirked. "Her voice has raised an octave. Contents are overflowing."

"I hate you all," I narrowed my eyes at the three women. "I, uh…"

"Am pregnant with Rossi's illegitimate child?" Garcia blurted out. I gaped at her.

"_What?_" I squeaked. "No! No, I just…I kinda _like_ him."

"Kinda like? More like _love_," Emily corrected.

"Oh, yeah. I _totally_ love him," I rolled my eyes and pretended to be sarcastic, even thought it was pretty much true.

"Do not blame you," JJ raised her eyebrows and drank some more of her smoothie. "If I weren't with Will…"

We all laughed and I hoped the subject would change soon. You could've fried an egg on my face.

"Why would you settle for Rossi when you could have all of that fine specimen of _Homo sapien_ that is Derek Morgan?" Garcia gushed. "Or Kevin Lynch. Kevin's pretty cute too."

"I forgot you were with him," I said, taking advantage of the possible segue. "How's that going?"

We listened to her talk about her boyfriend for the next few minutes and then looked at the time. We had a couple hours until we were supposed to meet at the bar. Emily drove me home and we all freshened up a little.

I took a shower, using my favorite vanilla-scented shower gel that I only applied on special occasions, and towel-dried my hair. I put on my favorite pair of skinny jeans and wore a black wife-beater. I tied my damp hair in a messy bun and laced up my Converse. I was just putting eyeliner on when Emily drove in.

She knocked on the door and I yelled for her to come in. I heard the door open and peeked out of my downstairs bathroom, putting on mascara now.

"Hey!" Emily stepped closer and looked me over. "Hot, hot, hot."

"Shut up," I rolled my eyes and stepped back into my bathroom to make sure I was doing a good job. After careful inspection, I put the mascara away and looked at Emily. She was wearing a pair of black slacks and heels with a dark blue tank-top. Her long hair was curled and she had a bit of make-up on as well. "You look pretty hot yourself."

"I know," she winked. Then she reached her hand out and grabbed the elastic in my hair. "You should let your hair down." Emily pulled and my damp hair fell down my back. I flinched at the cold tresses that hit my warm skin. "There."

I looked in the mirror and fixed my part so that it was off to the left side. I separated my hair in half behind my head and pulled it over my shoulders. I didn't look too bad…

"Thanks," I smiled at her.

"Ready to go?" Emily asked.

"Mm-hmm," I nodded and turned the light off in the bathroom, following Emily out of my house.

"Sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier today," she said as we got into her car. "Y'know…talking about Rossi."

"Oh," I made the Gideon Face and shrugged. "Nah. It's fine."

* * *

I didn't really know, like, _any_ of the songs playing. But that was fine because I'm not much of a dancer. I was perfectly content to sit with JJ and watch as Garcia and Morgan danced. Penelope certainly had some moves. I laughed at the looks of surprise and envy she was getting from three girls. They must have wanted to dance with Derek.

Emily came back with drinks soon and sat with us. She looked at Morgan and rolled her eyes.

"Still an alley cat, I see," she said over the pounding bass. "Oh—wait. The alley cat is ignoring the other felines and coming over here."

I turned around and saw Morgan and Garcia returning to our table. Garcia was fanning her smiling face with her hand. Morgan was grinning. He probably noticed the girls staring at him and the tech analyst.

"One of these for me?" he asked, standing next to me and grabbing one of the mugs on the table. Not waiting for an answer, he took a gulp from it. The percussion in the beginning of "Sexy Love" was starting to play—a song that I actually recognized. "I love this song. Hunter, come dance with me."

"What?" I raised my eyebrows, looking up at him. "No. I don't dance."

"C'mon," he grabbed my hand as Ne-Yo started singing.

"Ooh!" Emily and JJ chorused as Morgan started to drag me onto the dance floor. I turned back and glared at them.

"Morgan, you could have any of these girls that _want_ to dance," I said as he took me right to the middle. Some of the aforementioned girls scowled at me as if to say, 'how the hell did _she_ get _him_ over _me_?'

"I wanna dance with you," he cocked his head and gave me a charming smile. He took my hand and put it on his muscular shoulder. He grabbed my waist and pulled me close to him, swaying to the beat.

I was stuck in a difficult position. If I stopped dancing with him, people would question me and that would lead to people asking me if I was single. But if I kept dancing, there was the chance that David would walk in and be hurt.

Deciding to keep up with my single appearances, I raised my other arm and grabbed his shoulder. I could feel Morgan's rock hard body against mine. He slid his hands down from my waist and took my hips, helping me move with him as he slowly turned us around in a circle.

My face found its way to Morgan's shoulder and I could see the girls trying to get his attention. One of them caught my eye and I looked down at Derek's dark blue v-neck shirt. I kept telling myself that it didn't mean anything. We were just friends dancing.

I could feel several pairs of eyes on me. Some people had left the dance floor and provided a path back to our table. I could tell that our late guests were all there, for the most part dressed casually. Emily and JJ were smirking. Garcia was mysteriously absent. Reid was furrowing his brow as he sat at the table. Hotch wasn't paying attention.

But David didn't look too happy.

I gulped and tried to ease myself backward a little. The way we were, you couldn't have fit a piece of paper between us. It couldn't have looked any worse…

Morgan either didn't recognize my attempt at distancing us or didn't care. He didn't budge. Four years ago, I would've been _so_ excited. I had the hugest crush on him. But now that I was with David and he was _here_…

As soon as the song ended, I took a definitive step back and made my way back to the table. I tried to give David an 'I'll-explain-later' look when I stood one person away from him, but he just stared down at the drink in his hand.

_Fuck_.

"I got more drinks!" Garcia cheerfully said, putting three fruity-looking drinks. "A strawberry daiquiri for _you_, Miss Homewrecking Hunter."

"Yeah, that's _exactly_ what I am," I joked, taking the drink she handed to me. I sipped it through the straw and tried to ignore David's eyes burning into my shoulder blade as I leaned on the table, watching Morgan dance with the three girls trying to pursue him all night.

* * *

About a quarter after ten, I had finished my second daiquiri and felt the burning desire to go to the bathroom.

"I have to piss like a race horse," I said, putting the empty glass on the table and walking off. I could tell David was staring at me as I left.

We still hadn't gotten to talk. Morgan was dancing with the girls. Some guy had coerced Emily to dance with _him_. JJ was texting Will. Reid and Garcia talked about obscure things. Hotch and David would speak to each other about work-related stuff.

And I tried to drink the awkwardness away.

Once I was done in the bathroom, I came back to the table and saw Emily whispering something in David's ear. I kind of hoped she would be telling him that I "liked" him. Maybe that would've raised his spirits and helped him realize that I didn't "like" Morgan.

When I got closer to the table, Emily snuck away from David and I pretended like I hadn't seen her. Another familiar song started playing—"No One" by Alicia Keys.

"I'm going to take my man back now," Garcia announced, pushing herself off her chair and shoving her way through the crowd.

"C'mon, Spence," JJ put her phone on the table and stepped around me to grab Reid's arm. "We're dancing."

"W-What about Will?" Reid stammered. We were all aware that he liked JJ. Back when Gideon was around, he tried to set the two up with tickets to a football game.

"He's not gonna care that I'm dancing with the godfather of our baby," she swatted her hand and pulled him after her.

"Hey, Hotch!" Emily called out to the unit chief. Her dark eyes flickered towards me for a moment. "Dance with me." Before he replied, she grabbed his arm as well and dragged him behind her.

Now that the table was empty, I looked at David and stepped closer. He was sitting with his legs spread out, his eyes on the sports paraphernalia on the wall. I turned to check if anyone would've been able to see us and then faced him again.

"David…" I stood in between his knees and put my hand on his face. He looked at me a little morosely. "Can I explain?"

"I get it if you have a thing for Morgan," he interrupted. "He's younger—_way_ better looking than I am."

"What are you talking about?" I furrowed my brow. "I don't 'have a thing' for anyone except you."

"Then why would you dance with him like that?"

"Because…" I sighed. "If I didn't, people would've asked questions. Questions like, 'why aren't you dancing with him?', 'are you single?', 'do you have a boyfriend you haven't told us about?', 'are you _really_ pregnant with David's illegitimate child?'"

He leaned his head back and looked at me incredulously. I waved it off.

"Obviously the answer to that question would be 'no' because we haven't…" I shook my head out and closed my eyes. "Anyway," I opened them up and inched closer. "Everyone thinks I'm single. It would've been easier to keep them thinking that. So I danced with Morgan. Plus…he wouldn't take no for an answer."

David didn't say anything for what felt like a thousand years. Then he slowly broke out into a smile and I felt a _lot_ better.

"I can't say I blame the guy," he grabbed my hand from his cheek and held it against his leg. "You look especially beautiful tonight. Dance with me?"

"I'd be _honored_ to," I grinned and stepped back, letting him get off his chair. I decided not to pull the 'You Haven't Talked to Strauss Yet' card.

_People keep talkin'_

_They can say what they'd like_

_But all I know is_

_Everything's gonna be alright._

_No one, no one, no one_

_Can get in the way of what I'm feeling_

_No one, no one, no one_

_Can get in the way of what I feel for you_

_You, you, you_

_Can get in the way of what I feel for you_

I wrapped my arms around David's shoulders and put my face in the curve of his neck. I didn't care if our teammates saw us. They were all pretty much like that. Plus, the vast majority of them knew I had feelings for David. They were probably happy for me.

_Aaron Hotchner noticed how Rossi had enveloped McCarthy in his arms. They seemed to be fit each other well._

_"Is something going on between David and Hunter?" Hotch asked Emily. He held her hand in the air and had his other on her waist. It was like they were at Homecoming or something._

_ "No," Emily smirked at the two dancing. Somehow, they were closer together than Hunter had been with Morgan. "Not yet, anyway."_


	6. A Shade Of Gray

** The sign on **the side of the road in Cherry Hill, New Jersey flashed from "7 YR OLD BOY MISSING" to "AMBER ALERT".

"What time was he taken?" Morgan asked from the driver's seat. I looked sadly at the file in Emily's hands. Crimes with kids…those are the worst.

"Between midnight and six AM," Emily said from beside me. I was sitting in the right window seat, behind David, while Emily sat behind Morgan.

"Same MO as the other two?"

"All abducted from their beds in the middle of the night," David told him. "The first two were found strangled with blunt force head trauma. Dumped in the Wharton State Forest."

"_Just getting word that an Amber Alert for the tri-state area has been issued. The Cherry Hill Police Department is about to hold a press conference_," said the voice on the radio.

Morgan sped up and we reached the Murphy's house. They were surrounded by cars—both from the police department and the local news—and reporters. A man in a suit was reading from a piece of paper in front of the cameras while the missing boy's family stood behind him tearfully.

"…His favorite books are about dinosaurs," the man said as we got out of the SUV. "He knows all of the names."

"Glad they took our advice and started the press conference," I said to David.

"Yeah, but it would be nice if there weren't so many people _walking_ all over the crime scene," he spoke with strained annoyance. Morgan came up beside him and Emily beside me.

"He loves to snack all the time," the man continued. He was holding up a picture of the boy, Kyle. "Whatever happened last night…whoever took Kyle…the Murphys want you to know it's okay. Thank you for finding their little boy." He swept the picture from side to side slowly. "They know it was a mistake. They just want their son back. They just want Kyle back…safe and sound."

"What's the theory on what happened to Kyle Murphy?" asked a woman with brown hair.

"We're just hoping that he's lost…and that whoever finds him will bring him back home soon."

"Uh, this case is similar to two other cases in Camden County," said another reporter. "Those boys were abducted and found in the woods. You really don't think there's a connection?"

"We're not ruling that out. We'll keep the public informed of any leads. If you have any further questions, you can contact me at the station. I'm Detective Bill Lancaster," he held up his hand as if to wave. "Thank you for coming." He walked off the front lawn and came over to us. "That was fast."

"We don't have a lot of time. Can you show us around?" Morgan asked.

Lancaster bobbed his head. David nodded his head to Emily and she stayed behind. The rest of us followed the detective to the house.

"You should've taken this off-property," David told him.

"Yeah, well, the truth is, I wanted to do this down at the station," Lancaster admitted. "Danny and Sarah didn't wanna leave the house…in case Kyle comes back." He looked back at Morgan and then reached into his jacket and pulled out a school picture of the boy. He was a cute little kid with shaggy brown hair and a big smile. "That's Kyle."

Morgan turned the picture around. I saw the young kid's scrawl. It said: _To Uncle Bill Love Kyle_.

"Uncle Bill?" I asked.

"Uh, we're friends," Lancaster said. "And neighbors. Dan and I grew up around here."

"You know, your involvement in this case could be a conflict of interest," Morgan told him as we stopped over by the hedges on the lawn.

"Yeah—I appreciate your concern, but, uh…I'm not gonna stand around while Kyle's still out there. I know the other two cases. I didn't want to admit this to the press, but, uh," Lancaster made the Gideon Face, "no doubt in my mind that Kyle's the third victim."

"You _know_ what we're looking at. Ninety-nine percent of abducted children are killed in the first twenty-four hours," David reminded him.

"I know," Lancaster said solemnly. He pointed towards the parents. "I'm gonna check on them." And he walked away.

"We saw the pictures. We know what this guy does to little boys."

"Rossi, Kyle Murphy might be the one percent that makes it," Morgan said.

"Could take a miracle…"

I looked down at the picture, "For his sake, let's hope we get one."

* * *

"I cleared our techs outta here," Lancaster said as he took David and me up to Kyle's bedroom. "What is it you're lookin' for?"

"Certain behavior," David told him. He waved his file at the messy floor. "What happened here will give us a clue about the unsub."

"Excuse me," I stepped between the two men and crouched at the foot of the bed. "Kyle's sheet and blanket were pulled apart and off the bed." Then I stood up and walked toward the middle of the room. "Toys were…" I squatted in front of a smashed up fire truck and picked up some of the remains in my blue latex gloved hand, "stepped on and broken." I put the vestiges down. "Kicked out of the way. There was a struggle," I got back to my feet and saw that David was coming over to me, holding his file out.

"That's…consistent with the first two abductions," he said. "The boys woke up and fought. But," he closed his file and turned to Lancaster, "this looks a bit more chaotic than the others. When we're finished, have the techs look for any trace of blood or fibers. He may've gagged Kyle."

"In the other two cases, the boys were struck on the head. What if he…what if he used the weapon to scare him?" Lancaster asked. He seemed shaken. I wondered if his eyebrows always looked knitted like his.

"He could have," I said. "He would've had to act quickly to keep Kyle quiet."

After that, we moved on from the bedroom to the kitchen where a glass sat on the counter. It was filled a quarter of the way up with water. Next to it laid a colorful piece of cloth.

"My tech guys found this dishrag, a glass of water," Lancaster told us. "Kyle's fingerprints were all over it."

"So, he wakes up thirsty," David sighed, "comes to the kitchen and gets some water."

Lancaster pointed at something on the other side of the room. "When we got here, deadbolt on the French doors was unlocked."

"That must have been his exit," I said.

"Rossi! McCarthy!" Morgan called out to us from down in the basement. "I got something."

We walked down the cellar stairs and found our colleague reaching up towards a broken window, his gloved hand on the sill.

_ "This window was definitely broken from the outside," Morgan told his teammates and the detective as he removed his hand from the window sill. "Given the size of it, the unsub would have to be real slight to get through it." He turned around to face them. "What did you find upstairs?"_

_ "There were signs of a struggle," Rossi said. _

_ Pretty little Hunter was staring at him with admiration. There was something in her catlike green eyes that just screamed lust for the old man. And he wasn't completely oblivious to her beauty, considering they danced at the bar the other night. But she would be too shy to initiate anything with him because she was so afraid of rejection. However, Morgan couldn't see Rossi turning down a bedroom romp…especially not with her. He certainly wouldn't._

_ Hunter McCarthy was a guilty pleasure of his. He loved him some women of color, but there was something special about her. She was sweet, funny, hardworking, had morals—which made him think she wouldn't be the type to have a one night stand with anyone, not even Rossi—had a great body. She and Morgan used to go running together a lot. He figured he should ask her to start that up again._

_ She was off-limits, being his colleague, but there're no rules against looking. And who wouldn't want to look at Hunter running beside them in a sports bra and spandex shorts?_

_ "Looks like Kyle was abducted from his room," Rossi continued. He gazed over at a somewhat uncomfortable-looking Lancaster. "The unsub went out through the family room door."_

_ "So, he finds a safe, quiet place to break-in," Lancaster added._

_ Hunter flashed her eyes to Morgan. "Everything about how Kyle Murphy was taken is consistent with the previous abductions." She looked down at the file in Rossi's hands. _

_ There was a bit of melancholy in her voice. Hunter was kind of like Garcia. They were both very sympathetic towards crimes and victims and their families. But usually Hunter wasn't that upset. Just when crimes hit close to home._

_ She had three brothers—all of which had children. And as far as Morgan knew, the youngest was about Kyle's age._

Riiiiiiing!

Morgan pulled his cell phone off my belt and opened it up. "Yeah, Hotch? … Okay, we're on our way," he said. He closed his phone and put it down, looking at David and me. "They got a shortlist."

* * *

"Something on your mind?"

I turned around on the way to the front doors of the station and looked to see Morgan closing in on me. Emily and Lancaster were going inside and David walked past us.

"I noticed you were biting the inside of your cheek in the car," Morgan added.

"You know, you should be a profiler," I said, recycling the line I'd used on David quite a while ago. "I've been thinking about Noah a little."

"That one of your nephews?" he asked.

I nodded. "He just turned seven, so—"

"I don't think he's in any danger with our unsub."

"No duh," I rolled my eyes. "He lives in New Hampshire. But that doesn't mean there aren't any other preferential child abductors like this one. I would've thought you'd consider that too."

Feeling annoyed with him for thinking I was _that_ stupid, I turned on my heel and stepped into the elevator where the others were waiting. Morgan joined us and I refused to make eye contact with him. I stood as close to David as I could without touching him or causing suspicion.

"We've narrowed the list to five men," Hotch told us as we followed Emily into the room in the police station. He and JJ were sitting at a table with a lot of papers in front of them.

"Already?" Lancaster asked.

"Registered sex-offender Hugh Rollins, forty-three, lived in Camden County his whole life," Reid put the picture up on the whiteboard next to a picture of Kyle Murphy and the other two victims, "in and out of foster care since he was a toddler, and acquired quite the nice rap sheet." Reid was now facing us.

"What's his connection to the victims?" Morgan asked.

"Two years ago, he got a city job installing TVs," JJ told us.

"Have any of the families purchased a new TV?" Emily wondered.

"Uh, the first two did. Garcia found something else," JJ said as I walked over to the picture of the creep and stared at him. He had curly gray hair on top of his head and from his mugshot, he didn't look like he was in the best shape. "Rollins had no cell or bank activity on the days the boys were abducted."

"We haven't been able to connect Rollins to Kyle yet," Hotch added.

"So, what? Are you gonna wait for more evidence?" I turned to look at the unit chief.

"No. There isn't time. We have sufficient probable cause."

"Let's go pick him up," David said.

* * *

Lancaster joined us in putting our bulletproof vests on and driving over to Rollins' house. We all pulled out our guns. Morgan, Emily, and Lancaster went into the house. I went with David and two cops to the side of it, nearby the white truck in the driveway that belonged to the offender.

There was a fence that led to Rollins' backyard and, of course, it was locked. I was about to tell David, but he must have noticed it too.

"Get bolt cutters," he ordered the cops. Then he took out a glove from his pocket and opened the door to the driver's seat.

"Hugh Rollins—FBI," Emily said after pounding on the door. There must have been no response because they cleared the door and Morgan kicked it down. Again: of course. "_Rossi, we're in_," Emily said into David's comm. piece. I could faintly hear it.

"His truck is clean," David replied.

Finally, the cops returned with bolt cutters. While one of them got to work on the lock, I noticed movement in the backyard.

"Stop!"

_BANG!_

"I SAID STOP!"

"What are you doing?!" Morgan pushed Lancaster's gun down.

"HE'S GETTING AWAY!" the detective hollered while David and I got closer to our associates.

I looked out and saw Rollins making a run for it into his backyard.

"He knows where the kid is—stand down!" Morgan ordered, charging after the offender.

"SON OF A BITCH!"

I could barely see Rollins trying to climb another fence. Like I gathered from the picture, he was _definitely_ not in the best shape and regardless of his head start, Morgan easily caught up to him and pried him off the fence.

"AAH! NO!" Rollins shouted. "AAH!"

"GOT HIM!" Morgan yelled as he pushed the man onto the ground. Suddenly, I felt a little less annoyed with Derek…

* * *

The cops frog-marched Rollins into one of their cars. From where I stood by the house, I saw Morgan angrily confronting Lancaster on the front lawn. David came up behind me, pulling off his gloves. He touched my elbow and I followed him over towards the two men.

"…'Cause I'm not gonna sit still and I'm not gonna stop until we find Kyle!" Lancaster snapped, storming off.

"Kyle's not here," David said.

"No," Emily verified. "And if he isn't on this property…"

"He's already in the woods," I chewed on the inside of my lip.

"So, Rollins goes through the trouble of breaking into the Murphys' house."

"That's a big risk to take Kyle," David said.

"Then he only keeps him for a few hours," I shook my head, the tip of my ponytail whipping my shoulders. "This…just doesn't make sense."

"Maybe he saw the news," David glanced at me and then looked back at Morgan, "Panicked…" He turned to me again. "We need to search the woods."

And with that, we went off.

* * *

Back at the station, Jimmy Seager's parents met up with the team and Mr. Murphy. Jimmy Seager was the little blonde boy taken before Kyle. They were there to look at the toys Morgan found in Rollins' house.

Speaking of the lowlife, I had just stepped into the questioning room where he sat, the file in my hand. He looked up at me with tearful eyes. He seemed worried. Can't imagine why… Oh wait—maybe the child porn on his computer had something to do with it.

"I'm SSA Hunter McCarthy. In a few moments, SSA Rossi will be with us and we'll begin," I said coldly, taking the left seat across the table from him and pulling it off to the side a little so that when the parents came into the room behind the window, they would get a clear view of him.

"I didn't do anything," Rollins looked at me, his lip trembling.

I ignored him and crossed my legs, opening up the file. I looked at the pictures of the two boys in the woods, thrown on the ground without any care.

Just as the room was filling up with tension between Rollins and me, David walked into the room with his own file. He stood next to Rollins, crossing his wrists in front of him and staring into the window where the parents probably stood.

I looked at David, but he didn't avert his eyes from the window until someone rapped on the glass a few times.

David gestured to the window with his file. "That means…that the parents have identified the toys that we found in your closet," he said, stepping over next to me. "They belonged to their boys. It's _over_ for you."

Rollins refused to look at him. I pulled out the school photo of the newest victim from my file and placed it down on the table in front of the criminal.

"Where's Kyle Murphy?" I asked.

Rollins shook his head vehemently. "I dunno," he mumbled, still not making any eye contact. Funny how he could look at little old me and profess his innocence before, but now that alpha male David Rossi was in the room, we were given a nice view of his eyelids.

"Well, that's not gonna help you," I told him.

"Andy Losier," David put down a picture of the first boy, "he was eleven. Jimmy Seager," he put the blonde boy on the other side of Kyle, "he was nine. Now, Kyle—he-he's only seven. You keep going younger." David dropped the file on the tabletop with a loud noise and sat down in the seat next to me. "Guys like you don't last very long in Trenton State. Did you know that the inmates there watch the news _every_ night? I bet…they're looking forward…to getting _you_ all alone."

"Life in Trenton might as well be a death sentence," I added, uncrossing my legs. "Are you _sure_ you don't wanna tell us where Kyle is?"

Rollins hesitated. He glanced up at me and then Rossi, then back to the pictures on the table.

"If I tell you about this kid, I'm not going to Trenton…hmm?" he asked, sounding less like the blubbery mess I had met when I first walked in. Without anything but eye contact from David, Rollins continued. "I want that written down."

* * *

"He's gonna confess to killing Kyle?" Lancaster asked as Hotch, David, and I followed him into his office.

"He's _desperate_, knows he won't survive state prison," I shrugged.

"The DA's not gonna offer a deal until he has more evidence linking Rollins to Kyle," Hotch said.

"What about the toys?" Lancaster wondered.

"The Seagers ID'd one, but Dan couldn't," David told him.

"He never delivered a television to the Murphys' house," I added.

"So? He saw him some other way," Lancaster said. "Look—we have this guy, huh? He's about to confess. He's done _everything_ the same. Let's nail him!" He was getting quite flustered and upset.

"He won't confess without the deal," David reminded the detective.

"We need more evidence," Hotch said.

"Well, then we've gotta find Kyle. That'll prove it, right?" Lancaster looked at each of us. "What about the woods?"

"Well, it's a hundred-thousand acres to cover."

Lancaster looked at the floor, then back up at Hotch. "He's out there somewhere. I'm not stickin' around here," and he left the office.

"He's too close to this," I said as Hotch took a step toward the door with his arms folded across his chest. He was watching Lancaster's retreating figure.

David heaved a great sigh. "We've warned him."

"I sure would like to have _some_ physical evidence that Rollins was in that house," Hotch turned to us. "Take Reid over there. He's got fresh eyes."

"Rollins is scared. He's ready to talk," David said.

Hotch hesitated. "I'll see what I can do."

* * *

"If he came in through the basement," David started as he walked up to the second floor of the Murphy house, "this would've been his second flight of stairs." We were pulling on our blue latex gloves.

"Kyle's is the first room he comes to," Reid said from in front of me as we got to the floor.

David opened up the door. The room inside hadn't changed since we'd last been in.

"This wasn't a quiet struggle. He probably knocked Kyle unconscious," Reid stepped out in front of David to assess the room.

"Then carried him back downstairs," I followed Reid, who was standing by the smashed up fire truck.

"What's through there?" he was looking at the adjoining doorway on the other side of the room.

"Danny's room," David said. Danny was Kyle's older brother.

"It's interesting," Reid walked through the small laundry room and we followed, our shoes making thudding noises on the shiny linoleum floor. "Another few feet and he would've found Danny." We walked into his room and I saw the model plane hanging from his ceiling. Dan, the father, told Emily that he liked making them. "Danny's far more age-appropriate for Rollins' preference," Reid pointed out. "He's closer to the first two victims than Kyle is."

"If he'd been stalking the family, he'd have known that," I said, taking a step toward the bunk beds with Reid.

"It's weird…" the doctor said.

"What? A neat nine year-old?" David almost made me laugh. Danny's room was pristine—especially compared to Kyle's.

"Well, _that_ and most kids either pick a top or a bottom bunk," Reid crouched down. "Both beds are slept in." And it was true. The comforters on either mattress were pulled back.

I squatted next to Reid and looked up at the ceiling where little glow in the dark stars had been stuck on. "The top bunk blocks the view from the stars and there's nothing decorative down here," I said, looking at the bottom of the top bunk.

"It's Danny's room. He probably sleeps up top," David surmised, getting closer to us. He knelt down next to me as Reid prodded around under the blankets on the bottom bunk.

"Somebody wet the bed. You know, maybe Danny _started_ in the bottom bunk, wet the bed, and moved up top," Reid suggested.

David grabbed the blue dog stuffed animal before him and opened up his file. "This is Kyle's," he said, putting it up against a picture of the young boy holding the dog.

Reid looked at the file and then returned his attention to a bunched up pair of pajama pants under the ladder that led to the top bunk. He picked 'em up with two fingers and examined them.

"Size six. Kyle slept in here last night," Reid told us.

"If he didn't sleep in his room, why was it destroyed?" I asked, fearing the answer David was going to give us in a few seconds.

"To make it look like the other crime scenes."

* * *

"I just talked to Rollins. He said he dumped Kyle's body in the river. He's clearly lying," Hotch came down to our table in the police station. "He doesn't have any connection to that boy."

"The disposal of Kyle's body is very different from the other two," Emily said, walking around the table with a photo of the boy Lancaster found in the woods while David, Reid, and I were at the house. "He was _gently_ placed on the ground. Neatly laid to rest with his hands by his sides. Rollins discarded _these_ two boys like trash."

"We think Kyle may not have slept in his room last night," Reid said from where he was sitting next to me.

"Where do you think he was?" Hotch asked.

"I think in his brother's room. Uh, Danny has bunk beds. Both bunks were slept in and whoever slept in the bottom one wet the bed and left Kyle's bare."

"So, do we think somebody destroyed Kyle's room to make it _look_ like he was abducted by the other two victims?" Morgan asked.

No one answered and Hotch looked around. He seemed to be onto something. He waited for the two cops to walk by him. "Who else knows the details of all three cases?"

"Lancaster," David said.

"Morgan, call Garcia. See what she can find out about Lancaster that we don't already know. Reid and Prentiss, watch the video of the press conference. See if you can find anything."

"Want Hunter and me to talk to Rollins again?" David asked.

"Yes," Hotch said. "And I don't have anybody where we are. Please be discreet."

I nodded and got up out of my chair to talk with Rollins again. I followed David up the small set of stairs that led to the questioning room. Once we got there, David held open the door for me and then nearly slammed it closed. He made Rollins jump. I sat down in my original seat, but David came over to the head of the table and put the picture of Kyle's body down in front of the criminal.

"We found Kyle Murphy's body in the woods," David said slowly. "Why did you lie?" he raised his voice.

"You aren't the type to take credit for something you didn't do," I added.

Rollins' face crinkled up. He looked like he was about to start crying. It was a sad sight to see. And by sad, I mean _pathetic_.

"Can't go to Trenton," he muttered.

"As long as you're straight with us, I'll tell the DA you cooperated," David said. Rollins lit up a little. David dipped his head down. "Is that what you needed to hear?"

Rollins looked like he was stuttering, but he didn't make any sound. He was really starting to cry. "People don't understand. I can't _explain_ why I do these things. All I know is that I can't help myself! I don't wanna die in prison!"

"You're gonna be in one for the rest of your life, Hugh," I reminded him.

"No," he looked at me. "I'm talking about what they do to people like me!" He looked back in David's direction. "I don't wanna go like that."

"Then tell me the truth," David said.

I looked up to see Rollins staring timidly at the older agent. It took him a while before he looked down at the table and replied.

Rollins sighed through his nose. "He's too young. He's not my type." He shifted his eyes nervously up at David, who grabbed the picture from the table and silently stared back at the killer.

* * *

_Derek Morgan sat in the station with Hunter and David—who was actually standing—and looked through evidence and all sorts of papers. He couldn't help but steal glances at Hunter. She must have gotten over being annoyed with him since she was sitting right beside him. She had been working with David a lot on this case. Morgan sure she was happy about that. _

_ He thought back to when we were at the bar and she danced with Rossi. They were dancing so close to each other. Something must have been going on behind the scenes…_

_ Suddenly, Morgan's phone started ringing. He picked it up from the closed laptop it was resting on and checked who was calling._

_ "Yeah, Garcia? What do ya got?" he asked._

_ "_Hi. Who's there?_" she asked in a breathy voice._

_ "Just me, Hunter, and Rossi."_

_ "_Okay, I found something, uh, _notable_ on Lancaster…_"_

_ Instinctually, Morgan turned towards the other side of the room and noticed the detective closing the door to it behind him as he stepped inside._

_ "Hold that thought," Morgan told her, getting out of his chair. Hunter raised her dark eyebrow, but didn't say a word when he walked off._

"Well, I just talked to Dan and Sarah," Lancaster said as he came over to us. Morgan had just escaped and something told me that Garcia was talking about the detective. "I told 'em about Kyle."

"How'd they take the news?" David asked.

"Eh," Lancaster shrugged his eyebrows. "About how you'd expect."

"Really?" I stood up.

He looked at me and then turned back to David, "Listen, uh…I wanna thank you for all you've done for me and the Murphys on this case, but," he made the Gideon Face again, "I think we can handle everything from here."

David and I exchanged glances.

"Well, we're not going anywhere, Bill," the other agent said. Lancaster seemed taken aback. "Did you know that Kyle liked to sleep in Danny's room? Or that Kyle had been wetting the bed?"

Lancaster looked taken aback. He shook his head. "No…"

"Because if you had, you would've torn apart _Danny_'s room to make it look like Kyle had been taken from _there_," I pointed out frigidly.

"What are you talking about?" Lancaster asked quietly, shifting his gaze from between us. His eyes didn't move that far and I realized just how close we were standing.

"Kyle's disappearance was made to look like the two other boys," David explained. "Whoever did this had _knowledge_ of the other two victims."

"Listen to me," Lancaster stepped over to the whiteboard. "_Rollins_ murdered these two kids. He should go away for _all_ of them."

David nodded, but I was the one who stepped forward and started to talk.

"Losing a child is a terrible thing. But if there was a murder and someone is concealing a crime, _they_ are going to jail," I glared at the detective.

"McCarthy, you've got a killer in custody. You've _got_ this guy. Let's end it now," Lancaster seethed, casting a glance back at David too.

Just then, Morgan stepped over to us. "Can we take this in your office?"

Lancaster scowled at me once more. "Yeah." He led us into his dark office and Morgan closed the door behind him.

"What really happened?" David asked. Lancaster just looked woefully at us. "I know Dan has been a friend of yours for a long time. But you have an obligation to _protect_ and _serve_."

"You're gonna tell me what _my_ obligations are?" Lancaster nearly exploded. "I've been a cop for twenty-three years!"

"_Rollins_ didn't kill Kyle."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, we do," Morgan said.

"_Why_ would you try and pin this on Rollins?" I asked.

Lancaster quickly looked at his window, then back towards us. "I never even _heard_ of Rollins until you _thought_ of him as a suspect," he spat. Then he pointed out the aforementioned window. "Look, that son of a bitch rapes and kills children. He would've hurt somebody else's kid until _you _caught 'im."

"What does that have to do with _Kyle_?" David asked.

Lancaster took a second to calm down. "I'm asking you…look the other way. Please."

"No," David simply responded. Lancaster looked down.

"Detective, that would be framing somebody for murder," Morgan added.

"Rollins didn't kill Kyle. But you know who did," I said.

He took another moment and looked at us. "They are my friends."

"Well," David stepped forward, "I think…_you_ left their son's body in the woods. Now, what kind of _friend_ does that?"

* * *

Morgan came back into the office after going to retrieve a piece of paper. David and I stood guard over Lancaster as he stood behind his desk. Since it was getting late, some of the lights in the room were turned on.

"Were you _ever_ gonna tell us about your family?" Morgan asked.

"Why _would_ I?" an upset Lancaster rebutted. "They've got nothin' to do with this."

Morgan held up the paper in front of the detective's face. "Your children were killed in a car accident three years ago. Your wife divorced you right after. Your loss has _everything_ to do with this."

"You've got nothing left. You can afford to break the rules," David told him. "Take a risk. Frame Rollins for Kyle's murder."

"Rollins didn't kill Kyle," I folded my arms across my chest. "You _know_ who did."

"Okay, I did it," Lancaster said. "I killed Kyle."

"What?" David cocked his head to the side.

I didn't believe the man. But that didn't stop Morgan from grabbing a pen from a cup on Lancaster's desk and pulling out a yellow notepad. He plopped it in front of the detective and held up the pen.

"Put it in writing," he ordered. In fact, it actually sounded more like a dare.

Lancaster looked from Morgan to me to David. Then he took the pen and sat down at his desk. I couldn't believe he would actually do this. There was no _way_ he did it. He was covering for someone.

He _had_ to be.

* * *

"_Then_ you took Kyle to the woods?" David asked, leaning on a cabinet by the window in the office with me.

Lancaster had just told us his story. He finally cracked and admitted he wasn't the one who did it. Danny had flown into a fit of rage when Kyle accidentally broke his model plane and the parents called Bill. He broke the basement window, messed up Kyle's room, and took him into the woods.

"They're good people," the detective said. "They didn't deserve to lose both kids." Just minutes from then, we led him into the questioning room where Dan and Sarah sat. They were both crying and holding each other. "It was so…_quiet_…leavin' him there. And I kept telling myself…this is what happened to the others… I _had_ to do it. Kyle would be the third victim… And we would catch a bad guy." He looked at the Murphys. "A _real_ bad guy… And they might still be," he trailed off and looked down. "They might have a chance to be a family again."

There were a few moments of silence. And then the side door to the questioning room opened up. Emily came in. I looked through the doorway and saw JJ in the room with Kyle's real killer. Emily handed David the autopsy report. I read over his shoulder. And what I found out chilled me to the bone.

"Danny told me what he did to Kyle," Emily's voice sounded like it was coming from in front of the table. "Do you know what he did?"

"…Mm-yes, we know," Dan sighed quietly.

"_Everything_ he did?"

The parents were silent. I looked up at Emily before she continued.

"Danny stuffed…plane parts down Kyle's throat," she said difficultly.

"Wha'?" Dan gasped. Sarah shook her head in disbelief.

"Oh, God…" Lancaster muttered, closing his eyes and putting his chin over his shoulder.

"What…? He wouldn't…_do_ that," Dan persisted.

"You told Danny to watch his temper," Emily looked over at Sarah, who was still shaking her head. "What else did you worry about?"

Dan blinked a lot and then looked at his wife.

"Danny said you had a puppy…" Emily added. "But he died."

"Guh," Sarah choked out, covering her mouth. Dan grunted.

"Your son is ill," Emily said. "And he needs help… The truth is," Emily glanced over at me for a second, "the only thing Danny isn't capable of is remorse… He feels…nothing… The son you were trying to protect…is a sociopath."

Sarah's hand fell away from her mouth and she looked towards the door where Emily came in from. The blinds were pulled so that you could see through them. Both the parents looked at their son in horror. Then they grabbed each other's hands and cried some more.

* * *

"It's time," David said. We were standing in what used to be Lancaster's office. He was packing up his things, fondly looking at a family picture before turning to see us and Morgan.

He gently put the picture down on his desk. "I spent my life on the streets." He took off his badge. "And I couldn't be there for them." There was a clinking noise as he put the badge on the glass. Then he took out his gun. "Every day…I wonder why it wasn't _me_ in that car," he said intensely as he placed the gun down as well. "And why I have to live every single day without them. You know, when Dan called, I thought, 'Maybe this is it. Maybe I'm suffering so he doesn't have to'."

"Your kids died in an accident. Nobody can make sense of that," Morgan told him. "This family, your friends…they lost _both_ kids the moment Danny killed Kyle."

Lancaster just nodded. Then the sound of someone talking on a radio came closer. David and I both looked back to see a cop getting ready to take Lancaster away.

The detective sauntered past us and stopped at the doorway. "What does it even mean anyway?" he asked as we inched closer to him.

"What does _what_ mean?" David asked.

"'Protect and serve'?" he looked at David. "We all say it every day. Protect who?" Lancaster looked at me. "Serve who?" Then at Morgan. "That piece of human waste in the other room who murdered at least two kids?" He looked at David once more. "You _know_ what he is. You're the ones that found him." Now his eyes were trained on me. "And that decent family—that _decent_, loving f—" he choked out, looking down. "How did anything that happened today…serve anyone at all?" he asked David. "Huh?" he looked at Morgan. "Who won in the end?"

"That's the thing," I said. "We don't get to pick who wins, detective." Lancaster gazed at me sadly. "Even if that means no one does."

He looked at each of us one more time and then walked out of the room with the cop. I followed David. But when I looked back to see Morgan, he was standing in the doorway. Then he turned off the lights and came along.


	7. The Big Wheel

**_Morgan smirked behind _**_him as Hunter winced. They had just gone running that morning—the first time for her in a _long_ time judging by the way she dragged her feet to the bullpen._

_ Her hair looked darker in the messy bun she assembled before they got into his car that morning. After their run, they both came home to take showers and Morgan picked her up on his way to work. And he couldn't say it was disappointing to see Hunter go from a loose shirt with the sleeves cut off over a sports bra and spandex shorts to a v-neck sweater and jeans._

_ "Don't make fun of me, Derek Morgan," she huffed, trying to catch up with me._

_ "I make no promises, Hot Wings," Morgan winked._

_ "I forgot you were gonna call me that," Hunter mused, a tiny smile on her gorgeous face._

_ Like the gentleman his mother raised me to be, he let her enter the bullpen before him. She nodded her thanks and went to sit in the empty seat next to Rossi. Morgan couldn't help but notice how he grinned as she plopped down beside him and absentmindedly started rubbing her thighs._

How I let Morgan convince me to go on a ten mile run with him, I'm not sure. How I managed not to drop dead…also not sure. All I know is that I wholeheartedly regretted it.

On the flat-screen JJ was clicking through video stills of a pretty woman dying, captured by the killer himself. He had closed in on her greenish-blue eyes. Then JJ switched it to a picture of her whole face.

"Her name's Michelle Watson, a realtor murdered in Buffalo a week ago," she told us.

"Until yesterday, they had nothing, no leads, and then they got this," Hotch added.

"Buffalo PD received it from an unknown source yesterday."

"They able to trace it?" Emily asked. JJ shook her head, but Hotch verbally answered the question.

"No, sent through an encrypted server from the Ukraine," he said.

"There's no sound," Morgan observed from my other side.

"Y'know, at first glance, there doesn't seem to be a single frame to identify who shot it," Reid said as JJ showed us parts of the video. An unseen figure brushing his teeth. "He even covered up the mirror."

"I've seen some crazy things sitting at this table, but that…" Garcia trailed off. "Why send that to the police?"

"Well, maybe it's a taunt," Emily suggested, "if it showed the police how smart he is."

"'Catch me if you can'," David said.

"Two people in the video," I said, watching as the figure came across an old lady sitting in the front seat of a car with the door open. Her son or whatever was packing up the backseat. "They look directly at the unsub, but neither one of them seems to register that they're being filmed."

"I think it's probably a hidden camera," Reid said as the unsub looked down at an object on the sidewalk.

"Uh, the witnesses were able to give us enough for a sketch," JJ paused the video. Emily passed down the drawing. "White male, early thirties, wearing glasses."

"That looks like an editing suite," Morgan said as JJ started the video again.

"So, he not only films the murder, he edits it," David said.

"Now, do we know what this is that's playing on the monitor?" Emily asked, pointing at the other video playing.

"Buffalo PD is concerned that it might be another filmed killing," Hotch said.

"If it is, then we're not looking at just one murder, but two."

"Buffalo's underfunded, undermanned, and they need our help."

"Buffalo's a big gang town," Morgan pointed out.

"Murder rate in the last year alone was over seven hundred people," JJ added.

"Garcia, I need you to go through this frame by frame and put everything on discs," Hotch ordered.

"Yes, sir," the technical analyst dressed in yellow rose from her seat. "I'm on it." Just as she reached the doorway, Hotch spoke again.

"Also, put together a go-bag. If we get any more of these films, I want you on the ground taking point," he locked eyes with the flamboyant woman. "Is that okay with you?"

"Yes sir," she nodded, although she looked a bit uneasy. "Excellent. Okay," she muttered to herself, turning around to walk out.

As I wondered whether or not Garcia _had_ a go-bag, I missed part of what Hotch said to JJ. Something about fast-forwarding to a certain point.

"There's something I want everyone to see," he said once I was paying attention.

JJ clicked the remote and it led to the killer's hand scrawling some letters on a wall with a red marker.

"He's writing something," I observed.

And that something was 'HELP ME'.

* * *

"A serial killer asking for help. Well, that's a new one for me," Morgan mused, holding up a still of the unsub's message.

"An attempt at sarcasm?" David suggested from the swiveling armchair on the jet.

"What if he's sincere?" Hotch was leaning against the wall.

"Then he's deeply ambivalent. He wants to stop, but like an alcoholic, he simply can't."

"When we see him driving, his point of view is elevated," Morgan continued. "I'd say he's driving a van or an SUV."

"And the film stops where it starts—at his home," Emily pointed out. "So, we could _use_ the film to trace back street by street from the crime scene, right?"

"The film only lasts nine minutes," Reid said. "And in this frame, he clearly looks at a clock and it's nine twenty-two," he held out a picture. I leaned forward on the bench JJ and I were sitting on to get a look. Then I looked back at my file.

"Okay, the autopsy says Michelle Watson's time of death was four-thirty in the afternoon, so…he edited out seven hours," I told them.

"Garcia, look for unsolved murders of women in their early thirties who were stabbed. Buffalo and other surrounding cities. Go back ten years," Hotch ordered in a listless voice.

"Wouldn't ViCAP have already picked up on that?" Morgan wondered.

"Mmm," Garcia shook her head. "ViCAP only went web-based about a month ago and Buffalo PD only recently uploaded the data."

"Michelle Watson holding a day-planner," I said, looking through the photos in my file as Garcia clicked and clacked at her laptop. "They find that at the crime scene?"

"Yeah. That, her wallet, and all of her jewelry—including a three-karat diamond ring, so we know he's not financially motivated," Reid answered.

"First count," Garcia looked up at Hotch. "I have twenty-two."

* * *

"…The autopsy reports will help determine which of these cases are connected," Hotch said as he walked into the office behind Emily and the pretty African-American detective, Lynne Henderson.

"I'll get him here right away," Henderson nodded at the cop in the room with us. He left the room with only a dip of the head.

"We also need to take a look at the crime scenes, Detective Henderson," Hotch told her.

"Of course," she said.

"I'll stay and help Reid," David said as we stood by the map.

"I'll take McCarthy, Prentiss and Morgan," he announced.

_Hunter's hand brushed up against David's as she left his side. The blush on her smooth cheeks indicated that it was an accident. Maybe even that it gave her the same charge as it did him._

_ He watched the way she walked. One of her legs was just a little longer than the other, so she had a slight limp. And her hips… David don't think she realized how much she swayed them. He felt the right corner of his mouth tugging itself upwards._

_ Then his rushing blood started to boil. Morgan was also eyeing those hips. David liked Derek Morgan as a person. But he couldn't help feeling like Morgan was trying to steal Hunter from him…even though he didn't really know that Hunter and David were in love._

_ Rossi'd been meaning to speak to Erin and HR, but he hadn't yet. Not because he didn't want to be able to publicly acknowledge his relationship with Hunter. Hell, he'd shout it from the rooftops if he could. A beautiful young woman with hips like _that_ that's interested in a geezer like him? Not too many of those around._

_ No, there was a method to his madness._

_ David wanted to go as long as possible without letting people know so that they could prove they'd be able to work together without compromising their investigations. And he thought they were doing a damn good job of it._

_ Hunter walked out of the office and David wanted to follow her, just to get one last view of those swaying hips. An old man like him wouldn't need a certain blue pill with that swinging pelvis…_

* * *

"Hotch is in position, so let's walk through this," Morgan said, opening the blue door of the crime scene. He had some sort of video playing device in one hand while the other was gripping my upper left arm. He pressed a button on the device and it beeped. "'Kay, Hunter, Michelle stayed right here," he walked me over to the direct spot in front of the table, "facing me," he let go and I turned around as he backed up a few steps.

"'Kay," I said.

"Door's still open," Emily pointed out, leaning against the wall behind me.

"Eh, she didn't shut it," Morgan's eyes never left the miniature-DVD-player-thing. "And now she turns her back to it."

"That was her first mistake," I said as I faced Emily now. I grabbed the phone the victim had been using before she got killed. "Okay. She's on the phone with her husband. Three fifty-five PM. She tells him she had another client coming."

"And here comes the unsub. But you don't turn around. Just keep talking." There were a few footsteps and the sound of a door starting to close. "Now the unsub's in the house."

"Yeah, I hear him."

"You hear him, but you don't turn around. Not yet." Hotch closed the door with a thud. "_Now_ you turn," Morgan directed. I did as he commanded and saw Hotch staring at Derek. "Okay, so she leaves the front door open and she turns her back. She _must've_ been expecting Robert."

Robert was the last name left in the day-planner. Just saying.

"It's an open house," Hotch said. "There's no one else here. He knew she'd be alone."

"She's standing face-to-face with the unsub, talking to him," Morgan added. "And yet she still turns away.

"Second mistake," I sighed.

"He poses no threat," Hotch looked at me.

"Yeah, and if she'd seen a camera, she would've registered it," Emily pointed out.

"_Now_ she turns, faces the unsub," Morgan gesticulated with his hand. "He strikes. Right into her chest. And then he drags her over here to the sofa," Morgan led us over the bloodstained carpet to a bloody couch missing one of its cushions—taken for evidence. "And he films her death."

"He chose a controlled environment in which he could ensure privacy," Hotch was interrupted by another beep, "no witnesses, and most importantly—" his phone started ringing and he pulled it out of his pocket, "he didn't have to dump the body." He held the phone up to his ear. "Garcia?"

Suddenly, a light bulb turned on over my head.

"Emily, the point of view," I said as Hotch listened to the tech analyst. "She didn't see the camera because the glasses _have_ to be the camera."

Before either of my partners could verbally respond, Hotch started talking again.

"Thanks, Garcia," he hung up his phone. "He left us another message." The unit chief looked up at us. "He circled the number twenty-nine in Michelle's day-planner."

"So we've only got twenty-four hours to stop him," Emily said.

* * *

"Every so often, he's stoppin' and lookin' down at the ground," Morgan told us as we stood outside on the sidewalk from the video.

"At what?" Emily asked.

"I dunno. But it's clear he's trying to step around some type of objects," Morgan tried to emulate the way the unsub walked.

"There aren't any objects," she said in a slightly sing-song way.

"Well, at least not that we can see. But remember in the film, he cut the sandwich and turned it twice?" I pointed out.

"And the twenty-ninth was circled twice in red. So, this isn't a message. This is something he _has_ to do."

Morgan stopped walking and turned around to look at us. Emily was in the road off the curb while Hotch and I were on the other side of the sidewalk. Morgan looked from side to side.

"These are cracks in the pavement," he figured out. "That's what he's stopping for. He's stepping over them because he _has_ to."

"He's obsessive-compulsive," I added. "Meaning no matter _how_ hard he tries, he simply can't stop himself."

"Well, if he _wanted_ to, he could've turned himself in," Hotch pointed out.

"By writing 'help me', he really means, '_stop_ me'," I continued.

* * *

_ A new body was found. She was African-American, pretty, laid to rest in a blanket outside in an alleyway._

_ "There was no purse, no jewelry, nothing to ID her with," Morgan said, holding back the gray, scratchy-looking blanket._

_ "Whereas with Michelle, he didn't care what he left behind," David supplemented, working hard not to tear his eyes from the cadaver to look down at Hunter. _

_ She was wearing a black blouse with a few buttons undone, showcasing the purple camisole underneath. When she was standing up, there was a hint at the cleavage that lay beneath the thin material, but she was squatting next to Morgan and the view got a little better. But Hotch was nearby, so professionalism won out on this one so David focused on Jane Doe._

_ "He knew we couldn't connect her to him," he continued._

_ "Why did he cover her up and fold her arms across her chest?" Hotch asked, his voice unknowingly reminding David how much of a no-no his relationship with Hunter was._

_ "She can't be more than twenty-four," Detective Henderson mused, coming up beside the unit chief. "That doesn't fit his victimology."_

_ "The chest wound matches that of Michelle Watson," Hunter looked up at her as Morgan covered the victim's bloodstained torso back up. She stood up and crossed her arms, jutting one of those damn hips out. Morgan got on his feet as well and stood close to that precious joint._

_ "The way he's positioned her, the blanket, shows remorse. He probably knew her more intimately than the others," Hotch explained._

_ "That's somewhat of a leap," Henderson said in a doubtful voice. _

_ "Not when you consider this is the first time he dumped the body," I pointed out._

_ "Unlike the others, he brought her body here and dumped it," Hunter said. _

_ "Well…" Henderson looked at the woman. "Someone will be missing her soon."_

_ Another detective came up to Hotch and handed him a piece of paper before walking off._

_ "Today's the twenty-ninth. He probably killed her last night," he looked over at me. "Whatever his plans are," then he looked down at the paper, "he still has them." Hotch reached out and gave me the paper too. It was a security camera shot of the unsub in a store wearing a hat and a peacoat. "Be ready to give a profile."_

_The four of us walked off and left Henderson staring at the dead woman._

* * *

"We've confirmed over eleven kills over a ten year period," David told Henderson and her men. "This makes twelve. All but one, blonde, white female, mid-to-late thirties."

"This unsub has _extreme_ obsessive-compulsive disorder. This woman doesn't fit his victimology," Hotch gestured towards the corpse behind us. "He probably didn't target or even _mean_ to kill her."

"Five camera shops in Buffalo were shown this sketch," Henderson held up the drawing of the unsub. "The owner of Tarquinio's Camera Shop on Union Road recognized him. He knows him _only_ as Vincent."

"He bought two three millimeter mini wireless cameras and had them retrofitted to his glasses," Morgan said, gesticulating.

"He's well-versed in camera technology. He probably generates income from a related field," I told them.

"So stake out the shop, but keep a low-profile," Morgan continued.

"He walks in off the street, he politely waits his turn, and he pays in cash. This is him," Hotch held up the security camera picture the detective gave him earlier. "Black overcoat, black baseball cap. You'll get more from your sketch."

"This last kill shows the most remorse. This guy's mobile, most likely in an SUV. Low profile. Mute in color," I added.

"He's beginning to devolve," Hotch said. "His OCD will get worse and he'll have a hard time hiding it. He will take bigger and bigger risks to achieve his goal."

"In Michelle Watson's day planner, he circled the number twenty-nine. Today is the twenty-ninth. So we believe he has something planned for today," Morgan informed the detectives.

"He sent us this film as his way of reaching out. He may be ambivalent, but his OCD won't let him stop," Hotch said.

"If he sees a heavy police presence and he's not done…he'll run."

"The east side is his comfort zone," David piped up. "This is where he lives."

"However random, anything out of the ordinary, please let us know," Morgan said.

"Thank you very much," Hotch finished. The crowd of detectives dispersed and the four of us walked off towards the gate together. "Tell me again what the autopsy report said," Hotch requested of David.

"He seems to be killing once a year. And they were all, except for Michelle Watson, overkill," he replied and we stopped before the gate. "He stabbed her just once."

"And hers was the only one he sent footage of to the police," I pointed out. "That's a definitive change."

"You're right," Hotch said. "Call Reid and Prentiss. Tell them to go over the autopsy report again. We need to know why."

I nodded and led everyone out of the alleyway, pulling out my phone.

* * *

Everyone back at the station found out there was a witness to the Joyce Wolcott murder—her blind son Stanley. And guess what his birthday was? When I called Reid, he gave me the address to Stanley's foster mother's home.

David and Morgan were behind me as I strolled the walkway up to the house. The boy was sitting on the porch steps, running his hands along the Braille pages of his book. He was a cute kid—a dead ringer for my nephew, Raymond—with his curly brown hair.

"How you doing there, kid?" I asked, stepping in front of him. It looked like he was staring straight through me. "We're looking for Stanley Wolcott."

"Who wants to know?" the boy asked, making me smile as I took off my aviators.

"My name's Hunter McCarthy. I'm with the FBI," I told him.

"Hunter? That's not a girl's name. But you're in the FBI? Cool."

I turned and looked at David and Morgan to see if they wanted to step in. Neither of them did anything but look at me, encouraging me to continue.

"Today's your birthday, right?"

Stanley smiled a little. Then the screen door opened up. A slightly upset-looking woman with shoulder-length blonde hair came outside.

"Can I help you?" she asked, walking down the steps.

"FBI," David said, holding his badge out beside me. "I'm sorry to do this today of all days, but…we need to talk to Stanley. It's urgent."

"Stanley's been with me for…nine months now," the woman, Kate, told us with a bit of uncertainty flavoring her voice. We were standing inside the almost bare house. Boxes full of stuff lined the walls. "Our adoption papers came in last week," she affectionately looked at Stanley who was carrying one of the boxes and putting it on top of another, clicking his tongue as he reached out to feel the cardboard. "So, we're moving to California." The boy continued to click. "Uh, Stanley's been blind since birth. His mom didn't want him to use a cane, so, he, um…"

"My way around life," Stanley commented, stepping away from the boxes.

I smiled at the boy and Kate chuckled.

"It's called, uh, echolocation," she explained. "It's where the sound bounces of objects. It's kinda like a bat uses sonar."

"I'm the Batman," Stanley said, warming my heart.

Kate laughed and I stepped over to the boy, crouching in front of him.

"You know, Batman's Hunter's favorite superhero," Morgan said. I turned, rolling my eyes at the grinning man.

"Well, hey, Batman," I looked at Stanley. "Myself and my colleagues here, Derek and Dave, we need to ask you some questions."

He clicked his tongue and raised his little hands to my face, putting his fingers on my temples. He skimmed them down a little, not letting his pointer fingers go past the shelf of my eyes.

"This is about my mom, isn't it?" he asked somberly.

"Yeah, it is," I said softly. I hesitated and then started, "Now, I need to ask you—"

"Have you found him?" Stanley interrupted. I gaped, not sure how to respond. He dragged his fingers down lower. "I can feel a lie."

Once his hands were off my face, I licked my lips. Then I figured out my approach.

"We're looking for him, Stan," I said quietly. "We could use your help. What I'm asking you to do probably won't be easy."

Stanley put a brave face on. "Will it help you catch him?"

"It might."

"N-I'm not sure about this," Kate interjected.

"It's okay," Stanley told her. I looked back at Morgan and David, who were standing next to her. "I want to."

David caught my eye and gave me the go-ahead, so I turned back to the blind boy. I patted him on his striped shirt-clad chest.

"Attaboy," I smiled. "Okay. Two years ago, on that night, you were playing in the snow with your mom."

"She said my lips were turning blue. She told me to go in and get warm… She said it was getting dark."

"So, then you came inside," I continued. "You took off your gloves. Took off your jacket. And you got warm. But after awhile, she didn't come back in."

"Mom? … Mom?"

"Stanley, what do you hear?"

"Mm, snow's so thick. It covers the house…the yard. Everything's so quiet," his voice cracked.

"You call out for her, but she doesn't call back."

"Mom?! MOM?! … Now I hear something."

"_What_ do you hear?"

"I think I can hear my mom."

"Is she talking?" I asked, feeling sorry for this little boy who had to go through such tragedy. Remember how I said he looked just like my nephew? I could only imagine how terrible for Raymond this would be.

Stanley shook his head a little. "_Crying_."

"Now what do you do?"

"Go outside."

"Stanley? We can stop doing this now, if you want," I offered, noticing how he was getting upset.

"No," he told me. "It's okay. I can do this."

"You're doing great Stanley, you're doing really well. I'm right here, okay?"

"Mom?" Then he started clicking his tongue again.

"Can you hear her?"

"No. I need to find her. _Click, click, click._ Mom? _Click._"

"Stanley," I looked back at David, but the look he gave me told me to keep going.

"S-S-Someone's here. I-I can feel them. I-It's not my mom."

"That's enough," Kate stepped past me. "Enough. That's enough," she protectively stood beside him, holding his shoulders.

Slowly, I stood up, stretching my aching leg muscles.

"He saw me," the boy continued. "Didn't he?"

I put one of my own hands on his collarbone. "Yes, Stanley." Kate comfortingly stroked his hair. "He did."

* * *

"So your friend shot him. The man defended himself. You did nothing. You ran away and called nine-one-one?" Hotch asked the witness as David, Morgan, and I rolled up on the latest crime scene.

A thug had been stabbed on the street.

"I'm done talkin', fed," said the witness slowly as David and I got between Hotch and Henderson, Morgan on the other side of the unit chief. "I ain't sayin' nuthin'. I want my lawyer."

"You'll get a lawyer. Answer my question," Hotch demanded.

The witness sighed. "He shot him once."

"Where?"

"In the stomach."

"What was he doin' when you rolled up on him?" Morgan asked.

"Head down… Walkin' real fast like he was late for sumthin'."

"So you jumped him?" David added. This elicited a 'puh-leeze'-looking face from the witness.

"When he didn't give you what you wanted, what did he do?" Morgan questioned.

"At first, nuthin'. He just started makin' this noise with his tongue."

"What kinda noise?" Hotch asked.

"Okay, listen to me," Morgan started making the clicking noise.

"Yeah, like that. Ex-_Exactly_ like that. And he slammed Jay with the knife and…turned and came after me."

"It's called echolocation," Morgan told a slightly puzzled Hotch.

"The unsub's tenth victim. She left behind a blind son. He uses echolocation to get around," David explained.

"How would the killer know_ that_?" Henderson wondered.

"Because he saw the boy was blind the night he killed his mother," I piped up. "And I think that's why he didn't kill the boy."

"What—wait a second," David had an epiphany. "Today's that kid's birthday. _He_'s the event."

"Henderson, get units to meet us at sixty-five eighteen Cantwell Drive right now," Morgan ordered. The detective nodded and hurried off. We dispersed into our SUVs and drove away, sirens blaring.

* * *

"He's gone!" Kate moaned as she ran down the porch steps to meet David, Morgan, and me on the walkway. It was early in the evening, but the sun had already set. "He's _gone_! I thought he was in his room—he said he was _tired_!" Her voice went high on that last word.

"When was the last time you checked on him?" I asked her, worried about Stanley.

"Like, twenty minutes ago," a very frantic Kate said.

"You hear anything?"

"I just don't understand! He would've had to pass me to get out!"

"Kate, think," Morgan told her. "When you checked on Stan, he was asleep, yes?"

"He was under the covers," she started taking deep breaths.

"You closed his door. You went to _your_ room and you settled down," David said to the nodding blonde.

"I watched TV," she informed us.

"Did you hear anything?" I asked slowly.

"I, um, I heard a car horn beep twice. I looked out the window, though. I didn't see anything."

"He's gotta have twenty minutes on us," I gazed at Morgan and David. The former rushed into the house.

"God! Oh my God, he's gonna kill him, isn't he?" Kate asked, grabbing at the roots of her hair.

"Let's just take a look inside," David touched her elbow and led her into the house, with me trailing behind.

* * *

"There's blood here," I said, standing at the boy's open window.

"Oh, no," Kate whimpered, not able to go past the door.

"It's not Stan," David pointed out. "We believe the man who took Stan was injured. It's _his_ blood."

"We think his name is _Vincent_," Morgan said.

"Vincent?" Kate seemed taken aback.

"You know him?" I asked.

"Stan knew him before he came to me."

"For how long?" Morgan asked.

"For over a year. He was a registered helper in a mentoring program."

"Which one?" David asked.

"God," Kate briefly covered her face with her thin hands. "Stan has belonged to so many programs, I can't remember _where_ he met Vincent."

Morgan started talking to Garcia via the cell phone, but I wasn't paying attention. Garcia found out that Vincent Rowlings witnessed—or filmed, rather—his mother's death when he was nine years old.

Moments later, Garcia got everyone on a conference call while we stood in Kate's living room.

"_Hotch, you've got Rossi, McCarthy, and Morgan_,"

"And we have Stan's foster mother Kate here," Morgan said as I paced back and forth. "Stanley is missing and there's blood on the windowsill."

"_Kate_," Hotch asked, "_did Vincent take Stan out? Was there a favorite place they liked to go?_"

"A park? Playground?" David tried to help.

"No," she shook her head. "No, like I said, I-I only allow him to see Stan under _this_ roof, under _my_ supervision. He's been coming around more since I told him we were moving away."

"When did you tell Vincent that?" I asked.

"Like, a week ago. Why?"

"He killed Michelle Watson over a week ago," I pointed out, stopping next to Derek and his phone before continuing my pacing.

"_That must be the stressor that triggered Vincent's behavior change,_" Reid said.

"_Kate. Vincent's drawn the number twenty-nine with a circle around it numerous times_," Emily said. "Today_ is the twenty-ninth. We believe the circle may represent a specific location. They would've talked about it or he might have even taken him there before._"

"_Did Vincent talk to Stan about any adventures they could take? Places they could visit?_" Hotch asked.

"What are Stanley's favorite things to do?" David asked

"He-He, he just likes to make things," Kate said, walking over to a bunch of selves covered in toys. "To build things. Vincent used to help him."

"The construction sets?" I asked, noticing something out of the corner of my eye.

"Yeah."

I walked over to the Ferris wheel and gently pushed down on it to make it spin. "Ferris wheel," I said. "It's a circle."

"When did he build this?" David asked.

"Um, over the last couple of months. He's been in here every night," Kate said.

"Garcia, check Buffalo and the surrounding areas for any theme parks—permanent or visiting," Morgan said into the phone.

"_Theme park just outside of Buffalo_," the tech goddess said.

"_Ferris wheel?_" Hotch asked.

"_Um…yes_," she said with conviction.

Morgan hung up the phone. "Let's go."

* * *

With our sirens blaring yet again, we sped to the park with our bulletproof vests on. Not waiting for people to catch up, I ran ahead, knowing Morgan would be right there behind me. My body was sore, but that didn't slow me down any.

"Move! FBI! Out of the way!" I shouted to the people in front of me.

Eventually, I stopped and caught my breath, trying to find where the Ferris wheel was. Everyone on the team except Hotch, JJ, and Garcia were behind me, including Henderson and some of her police.

"He's up top!" David yelled, pointing at the wheel that sat a little ways away. I looked up and saw Vincent sitting with a little boy leaning over the edge, holding his hands out.

"Outta the way! Outta the way!" Morgan hollered as we sprinted towards the attraction.

We finally reached the Ferris wheel operator, an old man with glasses.

"I need you to get this kid down and stop the wheel! Do it now!" I ordered, holding my gun up at the stationary wheel. "Do it now!" The wheel came down and I noticed that Vincent was lying motionless in the seat, holding Stanley's little hand. "Okay, now stop the wheel." I pointed the gun at Vincent. "Now open it." The operator did as I said. "Stanley," I said, noticing how the boy was trying to keep a brave face, "it's Hunter from the FBI. It's okay. Sit tight," I stepped closer to Vincent. "Stanley, you're okay."

"What-What's going on?" he asked, clicking his tongue.

"It's me, Hunter," I reminded him, taking one hand off my gun to check Vincent's unresponsive pulse. Then I put my gun back in my holster.

"Vincent, what's-what's going on?"

"Listen to me," I reached down and grabbed onto the boy's free hand "I need you to come with me. Let go of Vincent." I pried off his other hand. "Just come to me," I pulled him up. "I'm getting you out of here," I said as Stanley latched his hands around my neck. I hoisted him up and let him wrap his legs around my waist, holding him securely against me. "You're okay," I whispered, carrying him away from the dead man. "You're okay."

"Vincent?" Stanley asked as I walked towards an empty bench.

"It's okay," I easily set him down and crouched down before him. Kate came running through the officers. "Here's your mom."

"Stanley!" she cried, sitting next to the boy and hugging him like there was no tomorrow. The boy looked like he was about to start crying. I felt myself tearing up a little too. Then I stood up and started to walk off.

"Hunter?" Stanley said, making me stop in my tracks and go back to the boy. As soon as I saw the tears running down his face, I felt my own mimic his. I crouched down and wiped one of his away.

"What's up, kid?" I choked out.

Stanley's head jerked a couple times. Then he put his fingers on my temples again. He let out a sniff.

"Did he kill my mom?" he asked. He ran his fingers down the length of my face and I just reached out to stroke his cheek, then I squeezed his shoulder. I pulled my wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans, taking one of my cards out. I placed it on Kate's lap and stood up, walking away. I couldn't handle seeing Stanley weeping like that.

"Hunter," Morgan touched my elbow as I un-Velcroed my vest and ripped it off.

_ "I'm fine," she said, wiping away her tears with the heel of her hand. She was standing before him and Rossi, her beautiful face looking blotchy._

_ "You don't _look_ fine," Morgan persisted. _

_ David dug into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the Sports Utility Vehicle, ready for our exit._

_ "I am. I promise," Hunter tried to smile. David noticed how she jerked her arm out of Morgan's grip. Then she looked at Rossi with her red eyes and he could tell that she wanted him—that she _needed_ him._

_ "Let's talk," David said, cocking his head towards the parking lot. "Just you and me."_

_ Hunter bobbed her head and followed him out of the theme park._

* * *

So sorry this took so long! I've been hella busy!


End file.
